Can You Dig It?
by Lampito
Summary: Dean knows for a FACT that his pup Jimi is THE BEST of Rumsfeld's litter, and is TOTALLY ready to go on his first real Hunt, despite Sam's concerns. There's just the small matter of his recent habit of digging holes like no dog has ever dug before. DONE!
1. Prologue: t minus 3 months

*muttermuttermutter* Bastard plot bunnies *muttermuttermutter* The Chocolate-Powered Update Inspiration Fairy has been on holidays (our elderly pussycat wandered away from home, too, presumably to die in private, which has put the damper on things chez moi), but this little bugger hopped out from under the desk on the weekend. Not exactly sure where this might go at the moment, but I'm sure another damned bunny will be along soon, what with Easter headed this way. I have a nasty suspicion that it was caused by reviewers, you evil bastards...

**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own any impossibly handsome man-sluts or mopers with a tendency to charge around ganking things that are not real. (I do have a dog, though. Considering how she behaved at obedience last week, I think she might be possessed.)

**TITLE:** Can You Dig It?

**SUMMARY: **Dean knows FOR A FACT that his pup Jimi is the BEST out of Rumsfeld's litter, and is TOTALLY ready for his first Hunt. Even if he has developed a habit of digging holes like no other dog has ever dug.

**RATING:** T. I could make Dean mime the entire story, but I keep having trouble with anything more complex than *waves arms around and makes rude faces*.

**SETTING:** The Prologue of this story picks up after 'Hot Stuff', when Jimi the half-Hellhound, at the age of thee months, has been on his first trip with the Winchesters, to meet up with a group of Ladies Of A Certain Age who call themselves the Fuckers, who are having trouble with their baked goods. They also have some interesting memories of Bobby, with regard to his ability to dance, and his posession of very attractive legs.

**BLAME:** Definitely the fault of the people who review my stories. Elf wanted the details of what happened when Jimi went out on his first serious Hunt with Dean and Sam, and got a bit confused as to how to deal with a revenant, and somebody else wanted to know a bit more about Jimi's litter-sister Joni, and why Dean couldn't stand her Hunter (sorry, can't remember who), so I thought, maybe I can strangle two plot bunnies with one stone. Er, squash two bunnies with one stone. Strangle two bunnies with one garrote. You know what I'm getting at. Don't be facetious.

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><p><strong>CAN YOU DIG IT?<strong>

**Prologue**

Dean shivered a little; unfortunately, turning the car's heating up would not disperse the chill that had nothing to do with the weather. The icy atmosphere rolled down from the heights of Mount Sam, as he sat pondering his crossword.

"Are you still mad at me?" Dean asked his brother in a small voice.

"Annoyed," replied Sam, not taking his eyes off his crossword.

"Oh, hey, that's an improvement on mad at me, yeah?" asked Dean hopefully.

"It's seven down," Sam told him. "The clue is 'Any node goes bad when irked'. Annoyed. It's the answer." He filled in the puzzle.

"Oh." Dean lapsed back into silence. "Are you annoyed at me?"

"Immature," Sam said.

Dean had the decency to look just a little ashamed. "I didn't mean to be immature. I didn't think it would make you feel sick…"

"Nine across," mused Sam, filling it in, " 'A rum time renders him childish'. Immature."

"I'm sorry, Sam," Dean told his brother in a contrite voice, "But, well, it seemed, you know, like a good idea at the time."

"The Streaker's Defence," commented Sam, frowning at his crossword.

Dean looked sideways at his brother. "Is this another anagram?" he demanded suspiciously.

"No, you just used The Streaker's Defence," Sam replied. "To the charge of Putting A Hex Bag Under Shotgun To Stop Your Brother Farting In The Car – 'It seemed like a good idea at the time, Your Honour'. That's the best excuse you can come up with? Ha! The court's finding: It's Snail Guy."

Dean looked at him in confusion. "I'm _Snail Guy_? Who the hell is Snail Guy?"

"_That_ is an anagram," Sam informed him. "For 'Guilty As Sin'."

"Well, it _did_ seem like a good idea, okay?" Dean said defensively, "I told you I didn't mean to make you feel sick. If it was a harmless way to stop you from polluting my Baby, it would've been a good thing. It's all that fermentable vegetable matter you eat. You're like a human cow, contributing to climate change, and stinking up my car!"

"Why didn't you put one under the driver's seat, then?" Sam queried, "Because I don't know if you're just inured to your own emissions, but your diet of bacon cheeseburgers with double onions does not always render you the most pleasant and subtly fragranced travelling companion. Throw in your beer consumption, and holy trouser trumpets, Batman…"

"Yeah, well, it clings to you, did you know that?" Dean returned fire, "Sometimes I worry about lighting up a grave with you too close by, because if you can't control your gastrointestinal tract, there's a pretty good chance that you'll go up in a big blue flame, or worse, be launched into orbit, on a flaming pillar of ass gas, Satellite Sammy, rocketing Heavenward – say hello to Cas for me – and me and Jimi will sit outside on a clear evening to watch you streak across the sky, and if we listen really closely, we'll be able to hear the echo of your last words, 'Hey, I haven't finished that burritooooooooooooooo…'."

"Says he who could fumigate an aircraft hangar in his sleep," shot back Sam, "I've been driven to spend the night in the car before now, because the atmosphere in our room becomes unbreathable! And you are NOT subtle. Some nights, I dream that I'm about to be run over by a semi-trailer, and I'm frozen on the spot, hearing nothing but the air horns as the tractor bears down on me, then I wake up in a cold sweat and realise it's only you, playing the Farter Sonata in A major, scored for jerk and cheeseburgers! Seriously, an aircraft carrier could use you for a foghorn!"

Dean drew breath to protest at being accused of fortissimo flatulence, but choked on the scent of lavender instead. He gasped and spluttered – he despised the smell of lavender, it was disgusting, demonic, and utterly _vile_ – then glared in the mirror. Jimi had finished gnawing his way through his cheesy chicken doggy treat, and was chewing contentedly on Oinker Stoinker the squeaky pig toy. Dean once more cursed the universe in general for letting the pup inherit his Hellhound father's peculiar trait of florally fragranced flatus.

"Oh, great, just great," he fumed, "See what all your talk about farting has done? Now Jimi is contaminating my car!"

Sam followed his line of sight, and grinned. "Whine, whine, whine," he said, leaning back to ruffle Jimi's ears. The pup broke into a happy puppy grin. "Enjoy the free aromatherapy. It might counteract the cheeseburger exhaust, jerk."

"Bitch".

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Bobby had been putting photos of Rumsfeld's three pups – the Winchesters' Jimi, and his sisters Janis and Joni – on his refrigerator since they were whelped. On some level, the arrival of Rumsfeld's half-Hellhound litter had triggered something grandparently in him; he figured that they were the closest he was ever likely to get to having grandkids. Or grandfurkids, as the case may be.

As the pups grew, like any grandparent, he couldn't take enough photos of them. There were photos of the pups the day they were born, photos of them with Rumsfeld, photos of them sleeping, photos of them eating, photos of them playing, wrestling, yapping, growling, running, and one particularly adorable one of them sitting forlornly in a tub of soapy water on The Day The Pups Discovered Rolling In Dead Stuff. However, at any one time, there would be three photos on the refrigerator. The Unholy Trinity, Bobby called them fondly. The pups grew, the pictures changed, but three photos were always on the refrigerator.

Dean claimed a headache by the time they made it to the salvage yard; he'd been anagramed by his brother, then lavenderised by his dog, and the Impala (and his jeans) had suffered the aftermath of another episode of rainbow-streaked half-Hellhound puppy carsickness by the time they arrived.

This probably primed him to be unreasonably annoyed by The Photo.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Bobby came out to meet them, with Rumsfeld and Jimi's sister Janis at his heels. This had been Jimi's first trip away from his mother's den, and Rumsfeld immediately took the opportunity to grab hold of him and start to wash him, while he yapped in outrage at being treated like he was still her denbound whelp.

"Seems like he enjoyed a taste of independence from Mom," grinned Bobby, as Jimi finally made good his escape and joined Janis in some rassling over a piece of shop rag.

"Where's Joni?" asked Sam, picking up his bag and looking around for Rumsfeld's third pup. Bobby smiled happily.

"Day after you left, she finally chose her Hunter!" he smiled, with a certain amount of relief.

"Bobby, that's great!" commented Sam. The Winchesters both knew that Bobby had been getting increasingly anxious about Joni – Bobby had introduced her to several Hunters he trusted, men with experience Hunting with dogs; they had all been keen to adopt her, but Joni had been politely aloof, and all of them had left disappointed.

"Yup," continued Bobby as they went inside, juggling boxes of baked goods from the grateful 'clients' of the Winchesters' last job, "The second they laid eyes on each other, I knew it was a match made, well, somewhere probably a bit south of Heaven, I guess..." He looked pensive. "It's good for Ronnie, too," he told them, a little sadly. "Lost Arko to a nest of vampires a few months ago. Magnificent animal. It's a hard thing, for a Hunter to lose a dog." Bobby shook himself. "Still, we got more cheerful things to think about," he declared, pulling a cookie from a bag, "Like how much grovelling you two idjits will have to do if you want to share my haul of delicious baked goodies."

"They were a very interesting bunch of ladies, Bobby," Dean said casually of the group they'd helped to get rid of a troublesome ghost, "And they certainly remember some interesting things about the last time you visited their town. Something about hiding in the library stacks with a young lady? After correcting the Japanese on a Poster for Victory In The Pacific Week, and arousing the wrath of the head librarian?"

Bobby stopped mid-munch on his cookie.

"Yeah, and wasn't there a date for a dance?" added Sam, "Apparently, thirty years ago you were considered to have very attractive legs."

Bobby frowned sternly. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the reddening of his cheeks.

"Yeah, well, nasty case, that," he mumbled, dropping crumbs, "The Chicken-Squashing Onion Bag Strangler. Seriously screwed up, even for an angry spirit."

"You were quite a dancer, too, we did hear tell," grinned Dean, heading to the refrigerator for a beer.

"And they insisted, no, they demanded that we persuade you to go visit them sometime," Sam picked up, "But it's okay, they wanted us to tell you that your batcherlorly virtue will be perfectly safe." He sighed and made appreciative noises as he bit into a cookie. "Even if your arteries are in mortal peril…"

"Bobby, what is _that_?" Dean suddenly asked, staring at the refrigerator.

"What's what?" asked Bobby, bewildered.

Sam answered for him. "It's called a 'refrigerator', Dean," he told his brother, "It's a machine, a kitchen appliance, used for the purpose of keeping perishable foodstuffs cold and thus prolonging their storage life. Most refrigerators use a vapour compression cycle in the heat pump, taking advantage of the properties of a refrigerant gas under varying pressure…"

"I know what a refrigerator is, Sam," Dean rolled his eyes, indicating a photograph on the front of the offending appliance, "What I want to know is, what is_ that_?" His tone dripped with distaste, suggestive of a patron in a very expensive restaurant pointing to a mouse in the middle of his salmon mousse. Or, worse, half a mouse.

Sam peered at the refrigerator where Dean was pointing. "Er, it's a photograph, Dean," he tried again, "An image created by light falling onto a light-sensitive medium or I suspect in this case an electronic imager such as a digital camera, typically using a lens to focus the light from the scene being recorded onto…"

"I know what a photo is, Sam," Dean muttered between clenched teeth. "I know it is a photo. I can see it is a photo. The minute I saw it I said to myself, yep, that is a photo. I am totally capable of recognising a photo when I see one, thank you very much." He glared at his brother. "Never mind, I'll just fix it." He began rearranging the photos.

In a sudden flash of insight, Sam realised what the problem with The Photo was.

Since Rumsfeld's pups had been born, there were always those three photos on the refrigerator door: Janis, Jimi and Joni. The photo of Jimi was always of the pup with Dean and Sam. As a result, it was usually bigger than the others.

Bigger, and always in the middle.

Until now.

The photos now included The Photo, a picture of Joni in the arms of a woman with a scarred face. The woman was smiling at Joni, who gazed back at her with an adoring expression.

It was now the largest picture, in between the other two. Dean frowned at it as though it had just insulted his dignity, his marksmanship, his manhood, his haircut, his taste in music, his sexual prowess and his car.

"That's Joni, with the Hunter she adopted," Bobby informed them. "Never seen that pup so excited about anything. They both just looked so happy, I wanted a photo before they left." He beamed, a proud grandfather. "Ronnie rang just before you chuckleheads arrived. Joni's a happy traveller, and she lit up her first grave on command with the whole alien-blood firestarter pee thing yesterday! That pup always was the fearless one," he mused fondly, apparently unaware that Dean was glowering as he moved photos around on the refrigerator door, "They're gonna be a great team."

"Dean, it's just a picture of a woman and her dog," Sam said carefully. "It's kind of a nice picture."

"Yes, it is a nice picture," agreed Dean, "A nice, happy picture, a nice, happy, rather _big_ picture…"

_Oh God_, thought Sam, mentally doing a face-palm, _Is that what this is going to be about?_

"I took it with Ronnie's camera," Bobby told them, still in Grandpa Mode, cheerfully oblivious to Dean's grumpy expression, "More bells and whistles on it than any car I've driven. She let me have a go. It's got so many dozen megapictures, or something…"

"Megapixels," corrected Sam automatically, "Eight or ten, I'd guess, from the clarity of this print at this size…"

"She messed with my printer, too," Bobby continued, "Showed me how to print out pictures so they look really good. That one of you boys and Jimi came out real nice."

"Yeah, real nice," echoed Dean, "I notice she didn't show you how to print that one out A4 size…"

"We tried, but there aren't enough 'idp's for the megathings…" replied Bobby dismissively.

"Dpi, dots per inch," Sam supplied absently, watching his brother.

"… She said she'd get me a camera with more megas, so I can take better pictures of them," Bobby went on happily, "Said she'd get me one that's just point-and-shoot, which sounds more like my style." He looked back at Dean. "What are you doing, boy?" he asked.

"Putting Jimi's picture back where it should be," grumped Dean, shuffling the photos around so that the Winchester pack were at the top of the refrigerator door, "Up here, where your favourite grandchild should be."

"Hey, I never said Jimi was my favourite!" Bobby protested.

"You don't have to say it," replied Dean smugly, having rearranged the pictures to his liking. "He's the biggest, brightest and best of the litter, so of course he's your favourite."

"Technically, since Janis adopted Bobby, shouldn't she be his favourite?" asked Sam, pointedly ignoring the death-ray glare Dean gave him.

"Okay, then, we'll ask him," said Dean, a bit snippily, "Bobby, which one of Rumsfeld's puppies is your favourite?"

"Grandparents don't play favourites amongst their grandchildren," stated Bobby firmly, "But if you absolutely must have an answer, then the answer is: Jimi."

"See?" declared Dean triumphantly to Sam, "Jimi is his favourite!"

"Yep," Bobby affirmed, leaning down to pat Jimi, "Whichever one is right in front of me at any given moment is my favourite just then, which right at this second, is Jimi."

"What if Joni came in with him?" asked Dean suspiciously.

"Then they'd both be equal favourite right then," Bobby told him.

"No!" squawked Dean, "You can't have equal favourites!"

"Dean, this is not a popularity contest," sighed Sam, with a shot of Bitchface #7™ (You Can Be Impossibly Unreasonable, You Know That, Dean?), "Joni has found a Hunter, and Bobby wanted a picture before she left the yard for good, because he'll hardly ever see her now."

"I guess that means she can hardly ever be his favourite, then," smirked Dean, reaching down to pick Jimi up. The pup yipped eagerly, squirming around to kiss Dean's nose, tail wagging furiously. "We know who the pick of the litter is, don't we?" he told the pup, scratching his ears as Jimi wiggled in delight. "We know who'll be the biggest, and smartest, and strongest, and fastest, and bravest, and bestest… AAAAAARGH!"

"…And most incontinentest," smiled Sam, carefully taking the excited pup from Dean, who batted at the scorch-mark on his shirt before it could burst out into flame. "Looks like I'm not the only one whose shirts he doesn't like."

"Sometimes, Dean," sighed Bobby, throwing a wet dishcloth at Dean, "You are so full of shit I wonder if you aint just a septic tank on legs."

With as much dignity as a man can retain after his half-Hellhound puppy has scorched his shirt by peeing on it, Dean dabbed delicately at the burn with the dishcloth. "He's just excitable," he told them, "He's the happiest one of all, too."

"It's encouraging if Joni's getting control of her, um, incendiary pee thing already," remarked Sam, "That means that Jimi will probably learn to control it too..."

"He can control it!" Dean declared loyally, "He's obviously just so happy, he doesn't want to."

"Right, a bit like you and your capacity for running off at the mouth," commented Bobby. "Why don't you go change your happy shirt for one that's less ecstatic, and we'll think about chow. You can tell me what the ladies of Fergus Falls have been up to..."

As Dean headed upstairs with Jimi trailing along behind him, Sam humphed.

"I don't believe it," he muttered to Bobby, "He's turning into a pushy stage parent. Just because one of the other pups is getting a handle on the firestarting pee thing already..."

"He'll get over it," said Bobby, waving a hand dismissively, "Jimi will grow into a fine dog. If he can just get through the first few months of his life without setting himself or humans on fire."

Dean didn't mention The Photo again. As an experiment, Sam shuffled the pictures around the next day, after breakfast.

By lunchtime, the picture of Joni and her Hunter had been demoted to bottom of the stack.

Sam shuffled them again.

Within the hour, the woman had a moustache drawn on her.

Bobby received an email that evening; after dinner, he printed out a new photo, showing Joni and her Hunter sitting on the hood of a truck.

Before bedtime, the woman had a pirate's patch over one eye.

And the truck had a Volvo decal drawn onto the grill.

That was when Sam realised, with an inward groan, that Dean had decided that disliking Joni and her new Hunter was going to be his new hobby.

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><p>Reviews are the happy snaps on the Refrigerator Of Life.<p> 


	2. Chapter 1

Sorry about dragging my heels on this one, O Treasured Regular Readers & Reviewers And Curious Browsers *waves to aeicha* - the Chocolate-Powered Update Inspiration Fairy has deserted me. This one just did not want to be written. I think I has a sad about my poor old pussycat, so apologies if this is not up to the expected standard of looniness. Maybe the Easter Lizard will bring me some chocolate, and pep things up a bit. It's a bit long, but we need to set the scene, so, make a thermos of your preferred brew, make sure you're wearing warm socks, and bring a packed lunch...

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><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>

"We should leave him at Bobby's for this one," suggested Sam.

"He's coming with us," Dean replied firmly, eyes on the road, glaring at the tar as if daring it to agree with his brother.

"Dean," Sam tried again, "We have no idea what we're dealing with, yet," he waved his notes, "And yesterday's bout of carsickness was truly spectacular." Dean had to pause at that, because it was true; it had been a Level Five Event (the back seat, more than six towels, more than two windows, and both Winchesters affected). They'd all ended up covered with the rainbow-streaked… _stuff _that constituted half-Hellhound puke. Dean had been too horrified even to crack jokes about Sam fellating unicorns, which said something about how freaked he was. They'd driven back to their motel looking like they'd been caught in a fight between Salvador Dali and Jackson Pollock.

"He'll grow out of it," snapped Dean eventually, falling back on the classic Deanism of pretending it wasn't there if it was at all disturbing. "Bobby said he had to learn to live the life, if he's going to be a Hunter's dog." He shot a fond glance at Jimi, who sat in the back seat chewing contentedly on his squeaky pig toy.

"Dean," Sam tried again, propelled by some futile compulsion to attempt to be the voice of reason, "There are inexplicably exploding food items involved." He waved his notes on their next job: strange goings-on at a steakhouse in Illinois. Dean had initially laughed as Sam described exploding food items, until he got to the bit where a customer had nearly lost an eyebrow to an unexpectedly spontaneously detonating piece of apricot pie. Dean had immediately got them on the road, headed straight to ground mince ground zero; nobody was going to mess with pie and get away with it on his watch. "I don't think having Jimi near exploding food is a good idea." Sam looked sideways at Dean. "If it comes to it, I don't think having _you_ near exploding food is a good idea…"

"This is serious, Sam," Dean told him unsmilingly - exploding sausages was funny, but exploding pie was _sacrilege_. "The wellbeing of pie is being threatened! We didn't avert the Apocalypse so something unnatural could go around blowing up pie! It's our duty to save the pie!"

"And we will, Dean," Sam was deliberately calm, "But I don't think Jimi is ready to come along on a job like this."

"He's plenty big enough," growled Dean.

"Physically, yes, he's a big boy for six months," agreed Sam, "But between the ears is another matter. He's a puppy: he's impulsive, he's curious, he's yet to establish reliable bladder control – and let's not talk about spot-fires – he doesn't always stay in the car when he's told, and as for this latest habit of digging holes everywhere we go…"

"You told me it's a normal developmental stage for puppies," Dean observed.

"True," agreed Sam, "The point is, most puppies stop well before they hit bedrock."

He just wanted to bury a bone is all."

"Wanting to bury a bone is normal," Sam conceded, "Digging a hole six feet deep to do so is not."

"He just wanted it to be safe!" clarified Dean. "All dogs dig holes!"

"Not through reinforced concrete, Dean."

"He's just… determined," defended Dean loyally. "His digging helped in our last job, didn't it?" asked Dean.

"Technically, yes," conceded Sam, "His digging undermined that wall with the sigils on it, and when it crumbled, the demon's summoning was stopped."

"There you go, then."

"That was a structural wall, Dean," Sam pointed out, "Which is why the building collapsed afterwards."

"It was deserted, right?" countered Dean. "Summoning of evil entity averted, demon thwarted, nobody hurt, good guys win. Happy ending."

Sam sighed. "Are you familiar with the phrase 'using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut?" he asked his brother.

Dean smirked at him. "Nuke it from orbit – it's the only way to be sure," he replied. "Overkill – it's not just a Motorhead album, Sammy, it's a philosophy."

"And you wonder why I'm worried about letting either of you near anything exploding." Sam decided to play dirty. "Bobby says that Jimi will grow into a fine dog," he said quietly, "But he has to grow up first." He turned on the puppy-dog eyes. "I don't' want him to get hurt, Dean."

"He won't," Dean reassured him, "He'll be fine." He snorted dismissively. "After all, if his sister can take down a rugaru, he can ride along while we deal with a couple of exploding sausages."

_Ah. And now we get to it. _Sam groaned inwardly.

He could've strangled Bobby a couple of weeks ago when, flushed with pride in the achievements of one of his grandfurkids, he'd related how Jimi's litter-sister Joni had taken down a turned rugaru after the thing got the drop on her Hunter. Jimi's achievement of that week had been completing a three-hour trip with only two bathroom breaks, and a Level Two Carsickness Event (two towels, one window and one Winchester affected).

Blind to the scowl on Dean's face, he'd printed out his most recently received picture of Joni, and put it on the refrigerator. Ronnie was not in that one, so Dean drew horns and fangs on the dog.

There was nothing for it; Dean was wilfully, stubbornly, utterly unable (or unwilling) to concede that Jimi might be a bit of a late bloomer compared to his sister.

"Okay," agreed Sam, tiredly, "Okay. He's coming with us." He fished out a well-used roadmap, plotting the next leg of their trip. "But next time he decided to bury half a hamburger and digs a hole in the middle of a blacktop parking lot, you can explain it to the motel management."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

They'd arrived at their destination just in time to discover that the detonating dinners had been the work of a witch with a grudge over an undercooked meal. They'd located and ganked the witch, but not before she'd completed a final spell, and died laughing at them. Sam had found her grimoire, and determined three things:

One, she was planning a grand finale that was to entail synchronised detonation of a batch of cursed foodstuffs on a busy night during a full house.

Two, she'd given it enough demonically-boosted juice to blow the steakhouse, the patrons, and probably a few cubic miles of underlying dirt (including power and sewerage and various underground utilities) several hundred feet in the air.

And three, the counterspell was going to require a very specific type of organic tofu.

"Tofu, Sam?" Dean asked incredulously, "You want me to go find tofu? That stuff is evil, you know, it's unnatural and ungodly and the work of Lucifer himself. I'm pretty sure that force-feeding it to damned souls is something that goes on in The Pit."

"Well, we need it," Sam told him, making shooing gestures, "So, go procure tofu."

"Where do I find tofu?" Dean asked, "Seriously, where? I've never hunted tofu before! Can I shoot it, or do I trap it? Does it roam in herds? Do I have to gut it, or just skin it?"

"Dean, can you try to take this seriously?" Sam snapped, "If we don't get the counterspell done, this steakhouse will be the first catering establishment ever to achieve geosynchronous orbit!"

"Can't we just trip the fire alarm, get everybody out, then stand back and watch the Apocameatalypse from a safe distance?" whined Dean.

"No," Sam told him shortly, "The spell won't trip until the meals are being served. We have to defuse it. Why are you still here?"

"Why don't you go stalk and kill the wild tofu?" grumped Dean, "We need tofu, you go find tofu, you vegetable-fondling weirdo. I'll stay here and do the counterspell while you jerk off over squishy satanic soybean swill."

"Fine," agreed Sam with an indulgent smile, "The first thing you have to do is cook up and eat a bowl of lentils."

Dean let out a squawk of outrage. "I'm not eating lentils!" he declared. "I hate lentils! Lentils are vermin!"

"It's okay," Sam assured him, "You get to flavour them with Brussels sprouts..."

"Gah!" squeaked Dean, "You do know those things are in violation of several international conventions concerning the use of chemical weapons, because..."

"Dean!" Sam barked at him, with a vicious side serving of Bitchface #8™ (You Are Now Officially Talking Complete Shit, Dean), "Tofu. Or. Death By Lentil. Your choice, bro."

Dean sighed. "Okay," he conceded, "Tell me about the tofu..."

It had taken hours of trawling through disturbingly 'alternative' allegedly 'health' food stores, during which he had offers to align his chakras, read his aura, manipulate his energy field (when an attractive blonde asked him if he'd like to be ruffled, he was somewhat disappointed to find out what she'd meant) and balance his nodes, before he'd located a supplier of the required curse-breaking curd.

"The mighty hunter has returned," he announced, "Having stalked, wrestled and subdued the evil tofu, at great personal risk..."

"Give it here," ordered Sam, putting the finishing touches on the counterspell.

"Hey, I don't think you realise the kind of danger you sent me into," Dean said, "Strange people tried to do things to my chakras, and I'll have you know I was nearly ruffled..."

"Dean..."

" If I never hear that strange Music To Fellate Dolphins By sound track again, it'll be too soon..."

"Dean...

"...I've been traumatised here, Sam, traumatised! Whale porn! I had to listen to whale porn! It's practically bestiality!" Dean was flushed with the righteousness of defending cetacean modesty against the prurient predations of makers of New Age CDs. "Did anybody ask the whales if they _minded_ being recorded while they were humping? It's not right."

Reminding himself that patience is a virtue, fratricide is a mortal sin and Dean is a jerk, Sam took the tofu and finished the counterspell.

"There," he said, finally satisfied with his day's work, "Now, we just have to... what are you doing?"

Dean sat on the sofa, fishing for his phone. "I got our next Hunt lined up," he answered distractedly. "I gotta call Bobby, ask him what lore he has on something called an Enya, it was horrible, Sam, we gotta stop it..."

Sam rolled his eyes and wondered if it was too late to begin practising Hinduism – he'd be a shoe-in to escape the Wheel Of Karma, having been sentenced to life enDeanment in this incarnation.

They'd headed for the steakhouse, sneaked into the cold store, and completed the counterspell. Dean had, of course, insisted that they return that evening, to celebrate a job sneakily done, and to re-engage with The Carnivore Within after the trauma of his tofu hunt. He decided to reclaim his meat-eating manliness by ordering the house Specialty of the Month, a 70 ounce steak called The Bathmat.

"If I finish it in forty-five minutes, it's on the house!" he trilled happily. "Maybe we should stay here for a few weeks, I could eat for free for a month..."

Sam pulled a quick Bitchface #2™ (Dean Is A Simple Animal Governed By The Three Fs: Feeding, Fighting, and… The Other One) as the waitress brought their food, then paused and sniffed. "Um, Dean," he began hesitantly, "Can you smell sulphur?"

"It's probably just you, Brussels Sprout Boy," grinned Dean, salivating as he picked up his cutlery, "You know how that stuff affects you. Sasquatches are ruminants – who knew?"

"Er, Dean," Sam tried again, gesturing at Dean's plate. A small wisp of sulphurous vapour, which probably would have gone unnoticed by anyone except a Hunter, was rising from the giant steak.

Dean's eyes bugged as he looked at his meal. "We did the counterspell," he hissed urgently.

"I know," Sam muttered back, glancing around the room. "I can't see any other affected meals," he glanced down at his chicken grill, "And mine seems okay."

Dean snagged their waitress, and gave her a low wattage version of The Killer Smile. "This looks absolutely great," he told her, "Where do you get your meat from?"

"Oh, there's a local butcher does the Bathmats for us," she answered, smiling back, "They were just delivered this evening. Yours is the first off the tray. Don't let it get cold – the clock's ticking!" He winked at her, and turned back to Sam.

"Just delivered," he growled, "Damn it, this is what the witch cursed! It's the Bathmat steaks!" The wisps of yellow vapour were getting thicker – it would soon be too noticeable to blame on a flatulent brother.

Sam looked at the crowded room in despair. "Even if we could evacuate the place, we'll never get everybody far enough from ground zero in time."

Dean dropped his head to his hands, then stood up, squaring his shoulders. "Come on," he said urgently, "We charge into the kitchen, grab the steaks, then head for the car and drive really fast in any direction – as soon as we hit the outskirts of town, you toss the lot out the window, then we keep going and hope we make it to minimum safe distance…" He took in the happy sounds of people enjoying a night out. "Fuck," he groaned, "Fuck, it doesn't get any worse than this."

Which of course, is something you should never say if you are a Winchester.

There was suddenly a babble of confusion near the door, followed by a series of screams.

"A dog!" someone yelled, "There's a dog in here!"

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

From when he was a small pup, Jimi had demonstrated a number of traits that he'd inherited from Jimi Senior, his full-blood Hellhound sire.

One of those talents was for sniffing out items affected by or pertaining to the occult, the supernatural, or the paranormal. Maybe it was his Hellhound ancestry; maybe it was something he'd inherited or learned from Dean. Whatever it was, he had what Dean referred to as a nose for evil shit.

However, he was half mortal dog, too – he also had a nose for human food that he wasn't supposed to eat. Multiple hit-and-run attacks on everything from Bobby's refrigerator to Dean's plate, via the occasional butcher's window, had established that.

Combine the occult with giant steaks, throw in his capacity to walk through solid objects like car doors (especially if he'd been told to stay put but had become bored) and the real question was: what took him so long to show up?

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

The brothers turned just in time to see a familiar shape making a high-speed beeline for their table. Without stopping, Jimi snatched the now-smoking steak from Dean's plate, tossed it in the air, swallowed it in two bites, and headed for the kitchen without breaking stride.

There was a sudden cacophony of breaking dishes, clashing pots, screaming staff, urgent barking and general mayhem as might suggest that a large dog had just run through a busy working kitchen.

Exchanging a look, the Winchesters set off in hot pursuit. "Jimi!" yelled Dean, "Jimi, what the fuck are you doing?"

They'd followed him through the chaos of broken crockery, overturned pots, spilled sauce and perplexed staff to the cold room, where they'd found him standing over a tray of very large steaks, eyes glowing red, gulping the meat down without appearing to chew.

"Jimi, what the…" Dean had begun.

There was a bright flash of light, followed by a muffled booming noise, probably something akin to the effects of underground nuclear bomb testing that made inhabitants of coral atolls turn to each other, sniff suspiciously, and ask "Was that you? What the hell did you eat for lunch?"

When both Winchesters looked again, Jimi stood, grinning doggily at them, small wisps of yellow steam trailing from his nose.

"What the fuck just happened?" asked Dean, his eyes bugging.

"I'm not sure," breathed Sam, "But I think that was a, um, contained detonation." He blinked at Jimi. "For a moment, there," he continued incredulously, "When that light flashed, I'd swear I could see his skeleton…"

Jimmy hiccupped gently, then burped.

A long plume of blue fire shot out his nose.

Sam jumped aside as the tongue of flame shot past him. "Er," he stuttered, "That may be an after effect of the, er, containment process. That energy has to go somewhere, I guess."

Dean started laughing. "The look on your face, Samantha!" he'd howled, "Hey, I got a flamethrower dog!" Jimi burped again, sending out another lick of blue fire.

"Um, we should leave," decided Sam, seeing the staff starting to pick themselves up, and peer into the cold room. One man had armed himself with a large meat cleaver. "I don't think this is something we can blame on sunspots."

"No problem, bro," grinned Dean, shepherding Jimi out towards the cluster of confused steakhouse staff. "Everybody stay back, and we'll just be on our way," he announced.

Mr Meat Cleaver stepped angrily towards him just as Jimi burped and flamed. The man jumped backwards with a startled squawk. "That's right, Guido, stay back," laughed Dean, standing behind Jimi, "I got a flame-throwing dog, and I'm not afraid to use him."

Sam's expression was alarmed. "Dean, I think it might be best if we just get Jimi outside right away..."

Jimi burped and flamed again. The steakhouse staff jumped backwards. Dean laughed at them.

There is a saying that goes: those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

Apparently, those whom they would humiliate, they first make cocky.

It could, of course, just have been another peculiarity of half-Hellhound physiology.

Or maybe Fate really just did have a serious hate-on for all things Winchester, and liked a bit of cosmic comeuppance as much as the next anthropomorphic personification.

Whatever the cause, Dean suddenly and startlingly discovered that his flame-throwing dog worked at both ends.

* * *

><p>Reviews are the bathmat-sized steaks on the Plate Of Life.<p> 


	3. Chapter 2

A smirking Dean, a backwards-flamethrowing dog; it's going to end in tears, isn't it?

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

"Go on," humphed Dean, when they were headed back to Bobby's yard the day after The Flaming Flatulence Fiasco, "Say it."

"I don't need to," replied Sam placidly, "You know already."

"Say it," grumbled Dean, "You know you're thinking it."

"If you know I'm thinking it, then I don't need to say it," replied Sam, eyes on the road, an infuriatingly serene expression on his face.

Dean, sitting crankily in shotgun, crossed his arms, frowned at the scenery as though he found it extremely offensive, and wriggled in his seat.

"You need a painkiller, bro?" asked Sam in a solicitous voice.

"No, Sam, I do not need a painkiller," growled Dean, squirming again.

"Do you need a bathroom stop?" asked Sam, radiating nothing but brotherly concern.

"No, Sam, I do not need a bathroom stop," Dean rumbled.

"Do you have worms, then?" enquired Sam, "Because I'm pretty sure we have some of that back-of-the-neck stuff we put on Jimi, and..."

"NO SAM I DO NOT HAVE WORMS!" roared Dean.

"Okay, I was just asking," said Sam in his most placatory tone, "Seeing as you're sitting there fidgeting like you got something battery-powered up your ass."

"Huh," snorted Dean, "What would you know about that, huh, Mr Vanilla? What the hell would you know about battery-pow – DON'T ANSWER THAT!" he quickly squawked when Sam appeared to be drawing breath to reply. Instead he subsided into silence for a few minutes. Then...

"You got prickly heat, Dean?"

"Sam, I don't have prickly heat in the middle of winter, okay..."

"Poison ivy?"

"I don't have poison ivy, Sam..."

"Diaper rash?"

"Sam!" snapped Dean, "I don't have any rashes, parasites, ballast to dump or lost adult toys, okay?"

"Okay, okay, sorry for asking," apologised Sam, "You just seem a little, well, uncomfortable, sitting there." He paused. "You didn't sneak out last night after I went to sleep, find yourself some adventurous lady with a closet full of whips or something? 'Cause I remember that time in Nevada, man, you couldn't sit still or wipe the smile off your face for two days but I saw those rope burns and..."

"SAM!" barked Dean, making his brother and his dog jump. "SHUT! UP!" He twitched in his seat. "It's just, it's just..." Dean subsided into unhappy silence and fidgeted again.

"Just what?" pressed Sam.

"I can't just sit here waiting for you to say it!" Dean burst out. "It's like waiting for the other boot to drop! I can't relax until you say it! I know you want to! Just say it, and get it over with!"

Sam looked thoughtful. "I can't decide how."

"What?" Dean looked at him incredulously.

"Well, there are variations on the theme," Sam pointed out, "I just haven't decided which one to go with, yet. I could use 'I Told You So', crude but effective, yet there's something satisfyingly accusatory about 'Serves You Right'." He paused for a moment. "I think, though, I might use 'Your Own Fault'," he decided, "Because it has an element of sanctimonious smugness the other phrases don't capture." He took his eyes off the road just long enough to glance at Dean, and intone gravely, "Your Own Fault, Dean." He smiled brightly. "There, all better now?"

"Yeah, just peachy," griped Dean, rubbing absently at the dressing on his arm, then picking at his sweatpants over the dressings on one leg. "That was my most decent pair of jeans," he continued accusingly, turning around to glare at Jimi in the back seat. "You didn't have to go and set fire to them!" His eyes narrowed. "And as for what followed..."

"I don't know what prompted him to do that," Sam defended the dog, "But if he hadn't, you would've ended up, at the very least, in the burns unit of the nearest hospital, in a lot of pain, and out of action for a long time."

"So, I'd have no skin left on my legs," commented Dean, "That's not as bad as having all my dignity ripped off!" He turned a wounded expression on Jimi. "I don't believe you did that, Jimi," he said, in a small hurt voice. Jimi sat chewing on his squeaky pig toy in an unconcerned fashion.

"Dean, he saved your life!" Sam told him. "Your jeans were on fire, bro! _You_ were on fire! People _die_ from their clothes catching fire – he saved you!" He smiled at the dog in the rear-view mirror. "His Hellhound heritage must give him fireproofing, or something," he speculated.

"He pantsed me, Sam!" Dean practically wailed, "In the middle of that steakhouse, he pantsed me!" He shot a look of despair at the uncaring universe. "My own dog pantsed me!"

"Dean, he had to, you were on fire..."

"I was only on fire because he set me on fire in the first place!" howled Dean. Sam grimaced.

"You turf an owl," he said, in a tone of finality.

"Huh?" Dean's eyeballs practically crossed as his brain tried to catch up with the apparent swerve the conversation had taken into the realm of grass maintenance pertaining to nocturnal raptors.

"You turf an owl," repeated Sam. "It's another way of arranging the letters in 'Your Own Fault'. It'll get boring if I say it over and over again, so... you turf an owl."

"Gee, thanks for the understanding, baby brother," Dean mumbled.

"Unto your flaw," replied Sam.

"Right in front of that waitress, too," sighed Dean, "Jesus, what a rack she had..."

"Law of your nut," said Sam.

"I would've liked to get pantless in her company, yes," conceded Dean, "But having my flaming trousers torn off me wasn't what I had in mind..."

"Your tuna fowl," said Sam.

"I always laughed at that thing about, you know, make sure you're wearing decent underwear," Dean mused sadly, "In case you get hit by a bus... or set on fire by your own dog..."

"You run at wolf," said Sam.

"Because if I'd known," continued Dean, "If I'd even suspected that I'd end up standing in front of her in my shorts, I'd have chosen a decent pair of shorts for the occasion..."

"Lay out fur now," said Sam.

"At least," muttered Dean, blushing slightly, "I'd have worn a pair that didn't have, you know, holes in them..."

"You want flour?" asked Sam.

"Or at least, didn't have a hole in them, er, right there..."

"You low fun rat," said Sam.

Dean groaned. "Are you going to keep this up all the way to Bobby's?"

"Want flu or you," said Sam.

"Sam", warned Dean from between clenched teeth, "Shut the fuck up."

There was silence for a few minutes.

"Heft cut up husk." said Sam.

"Stop it, Sam."

"Spit atoms."

"I'm warning you..."

"Your main wing."

"Evil little brother..."

"Let overbite thrill."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "Sam has boobs."

Sam just smiled contentedly, and replied "Mob has a boss."

Dean slouched. "Fuck my life."

"I fuck my elf."

Dean subsided to muttering about hating witches, culling little brothers who were clearly unnatural freaks, and what he was going to do to Fate if he ever met the miserable bastard (he hinted at the use of duct tape, crazy glue and plastic cutlery).

The worst bit, he decided, was that Sam was right – it was His Own Fault.

No, the worst bit, he decided later, was that the lentils and Brussels sprouts from Sam's spell-casting were having the inevitable effect on his little brother.

No, the worst bit, he decided after that, was that they'd discovered what effect steak had on Hellhound digestion – the pup's usual lavender-fragranced flatulence had been replaced by ylang-ylang.

"It's supposed to be relaxing, Dean. And stimulate virility," Sam told him.

"I do not need, and have never needed, flowers to stimulate my virility," Dean growled, "Right now the only thing it's stimulating is the urge to shove corks up your asses."

Sam gave him a sidelong glance. "It's clearly not working on you," he decided, "All it's doing is stimulating your hostility."

"Sam…"

"And your volatility."

"Sam…"

"Your irritability, too."

No, the worst bit, he decided after all, was that his heartless little brother refused to open a window. "You want to snap-freeze your own face, go ahead," Sam pronounced.

"But you don't understand, Sam," Dean practically wailed, "That'll suck the smells right past me on their way out!"

Sam turned a brotherly smile on him. "Dean," he explained gently, "It's not that I don't understand – I just don't care. Quit snivelling."

"I'm not snivelling," snivelled Dean. His complaining trailed off into a droning sort of Buddhist mantra of discontent with no discernible vowels muttered under his breath.

"Why don't you pop a painkiller and try to take a nap, bro?" suggested Sam.

"Frggn smrtss brthr stnkng lttl frkbrn btch sshl sdstc brssl sprt by fck," mumbled Dean in a sullen monologue that would've done credit to a sulking five year old.

His mood really wasn't any better by the time they finally arrived at Bobby's.

"Whose is that?" he asked crankily, getting stiffly out of the Impala, eyeing the unfamiliar pick-up parked in the yard.

"No idea," huffed Sam, letting Jimi out of the back. "Bobby knows lots of Hunters, probably some guy passing through who wanted to ask him something. Just get yourself inside."

"Yeah, the sooner Bobby gets over laughing his ass off at me, the better," decided Dean gloomily, heading for the door. His burns were superficial, but they stung. Not as much as the gaping wounds in his dignity, but enough to smart. He decided he'd exchange gruff and manly 'Hi there's with the guy Bobby was talking to, and head straight upstairs…

Bobby met them at the door with an enormous grin that should've alerted him that Fate wasn't finished poking him with a pointy stick just yet. "Well, look what the cat dragged in," the old Hunter beamed, ushering both Winchesters towards the living room. "Perfect timing. There's someone here I want you two to meet."

Jimi suddenly cocked his head, let out a joyful bark, and raced for the living room. Curious, the brothers followed him, Bobby bringing up the rear.

"It's been a long trip, Bobby," sighed Dean, "I'm really not feeling like socialising…"

He stopped dead when he laid eyes on the Hunter sitting in one of the chairs: a woman with a scar that ran the length of the left side of her face. She didn't look up as they entered, she just kept watching Jimi intently, her rapt attention focused entirely on the pup.

Bobby smiled indulgently as Jimi rassled happily with his sister on the floor. "Boys," he said, "I'd like you to meet Joni's hunter. Dean and Sam Winchester, this is Veronica Shepherd, but if you don't want your limbs torn off, call her Ronnie."

Dean groaned inwardly.

_I fuck my elf._

* * *

><p>Ten chocolate-coated internets to whoever suggests the best first thing for Dean to say to Ronnie (I'm guessing it won't be "I'm so pleased to finally meet you in person").<p>

Reviews are the adult toys in the Bedroom Of Life.

… too forward? Okay. Sorry.

Reviews are the lusty toad in the Fibre Fool Dome.


	4. Chapter 3

Gah! Gaaaah! This one just didn't want to be written. The Update-Inspiration Fairy has obviously buggered off for Easter. And I have eaten so much chocolate in the last week. My muse - it deserts me. Le sigh. (insert sad face here). I understand that this happens to all writers of fanfics at some stage (except for those writing wincest and pervy-angel stuff, *those* people never seem to run dry). All I can do is beg your pardon and humbly crave your forgiveness for taking so long. Oh, yes, Lady Deebo and Poesie get some chokky-coated internets for suggesting snarkiness from Dean. He's not the Michaelsword, he's a very naughty boy.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3<strong>

People-watching was something that Sam had done since he was a child. He'd always been particularly perceptive at hearing the difference between what a person might say, and what that person was actually thinking. It was a talent that would've been useful for a lawyer. It was definitely useful for a Hunter. And it was invaluable for being Dean's brother.

Right now, Sam was watching Bobby watching Dean watching Ronnie watching Jimi.

Bobby was smiling contentedly, the pater familias watching over an indescribably odd extended family. He put Sam in mind of an indulgent grandfather at a Christmas dinner gathering, enjoying the ambiance before settling in his favourite chair to nap off the effects of too much turkey and a generous amount of brandy.

Bobby would've been good at that, thought Sam, being the doting, dozing head of a family, displaying the capacity to remain blissfully ignorant while the kids yelled and beat each other up with their presents, the sulky teenager slunk away with his girlfriend to make out, the men got stuck into the beer and started a heated discussion about politics or football or operating systems or gaming platforms that nearly ended in a fist fight, the puritanical maiden aunt lectured a tweeny girl with a band t-shirt and too much eyeliner about the perils of being A Painted Jezebel, the daughters-in-law who couldn't stand each other bitched viciously about some slight made several years ago then turned their anger on their beer-buzzed menfolk who decided that they couldn't interrupt their poker game to help with the post-Christmas dinner scorched earth clean-up because hey, we're playing for actual matchsticks here, the elderly aunts ignored each other as they had done for the last fifteen years after the dispute over who should have Muriel's silverware when she died, the high-strung mutton-dressed-as-lamb daughter refused to speak to her mother on account of What She Said About Jeffrey At His Sentencing, and they all speculated not-terribly-discreetly about the sexuality of the daughter who was in her TWENTIES now and had shown up without a boyfriend AGAIN – on a MOTORCYCLE, no less... No doubt he would wake up to wave goodbye when the kids were full of sugar and red food colouring and so overtired they were screaming and tantruming, while his family bundled back into their station wagons (except for the recently divorced son who'd acquired a modified SUV along with the 19-year-old girlfriend) and drove off in icy silence (where she was driving because he was slumped snoring in the passenger seat) or simmering Not-In-Front-Of-The-Children resentment (because she was seriously pissed off at him for not helping with the post feeding frenzy clean-up and he would not be getting laid again until at least Easter).

_Ah, family,_ Bobby's doting expression said, _Nothin' else can give you that warm fuzzy feeling. Except fartin' in bed on a cold winter morning, perhaps..._

Dean, on the other hand, was not looking the least bit doting.

Dean's default for meeting a human female was 'charming'. A pretty bartender, a middle-aged doctor, a frail grandmother, a dumpy waitress, a librarian with hair in a severe bun (ohhhh yeah, _especially_ a librarian with the bun thing happening), if it had two X chromosomes per cell to bang together, something deeply ingrained in Dean's very marrow compelled him to be at the very least charming.

Right now, Dean was radiating about as much charm as a starving Hellhound facing a damned soul that had just said, "Yeah? Well, I don't _want_ to go to Hell. Make me, Fido, you scrawny pussy." Only not quite that subtle.

The moment he laid eyes on Joni's Hunter, he stood up straight, squared his shoulders, and put on his game face, cocky smirk in place. Dean had His Alpha On - for a moment, Sam had a sudden vision of his brother reinforcing the message by peeing on the sofa to establish his dominance. The overall ambiance was somewhat spoiled by the fact that he was wearing a pair of ratty sweatpants, one arm was bandaged and one of his eyebrows would not be off the bench any time soon.

He had to hand it to his big brother; he was good at doing Intimidating. Dean could project a field of Do Not Fuck With Me Bitch over an area of a dozen square feet with just a twitch of an eyebrow and a Dean Winchester Patented Smug Smirk #1® (I Could Gut You With A Plastic Spoon, Tie Your Innards Into A Macrame Pot-Plant Holder And Skullfuck You Before You Had Time To Scream At My Terrifying Awesomeness). The way he was projecting at the moment, Sam wondered how it was that Ronnie hadn't melted away into a little greasy spot on the carpet.

Sam stuck his hand out. "Hi, Ronnie," he said pleasantly, "I'm Sam." _See how polite I'm being? Concentrate on that._

"Howdy, Sam," she replied with a smile, in an accent he couldn't immediately place. Still smiling, she turned and stepped into the Do Not Fuck With Me Bitch field. "And you must be Dean," she continued. _Good grief, did I insult you in a previous life?_

"Hello, Veronica," Dean replied calmly enough, "We've heard so much about you, and Joni's... achievements." He didn't so much smile as bare his teeth. _Eat tofu and die of lavender poisoning, you My-Dog-Is-An-Honours-Student Look-At-Me-I-Can-Print-Out-Nice-Photos bitch._

"Er, yeah, Bobby tells me that Jimi is shaping up into quite a character," she kept smiling and stood firm as the relentless waves of Do Not Fuck With Me Bitch battered against her. _No, seriously, what? Did I dent your car? Spill your beer? Kiss your boyfriend?_

Joni left off wrestling to reacquaint herself with Sam – she'd spent many contented hours as a small pup sitting in his lap while he was reading whenever Jimi was not there, being off instead doing manly male bonding stuff with Dean (strangely enough, neither Sam nor Joni had cared to join in the games of Dead Squirrel Tug-Of-War. For their part, neither Dean nor Jimi could understand why Bobby wouldn't let them back into the house until they'd been hosed off outside).

"I can't believe how much Joni has grown," Sam told her as they all sat down. _Please ignore my brother, he's thirty-something going on six. _

"She's not going to get near the size your boy will grow to. He's going to be a big, solid boy, very impressive," she replied. _That's okay. He's actually kind of adorable, doing the dominant male thing. _"Just like his Hunter," she continued with a grin at Dean. _You really do think of yourself as a severely fuckable specimen, don't you?_

"I'll go put some coffee on, then," smiled Bobby contentedly_. Ah, family._ "You idjits make yourselves comfy." _Like the time I had to follow that kelpie into a cave at low tide, and she gave me such a scare I plumb pissed my waders, that was kinda warm and fuzzy too, if I'm honest._

Jimi pulled away from Janis, and went to investigate Ronnie. "Hello, handsome," she crooned, ruffling his ears as he wagged his tail furiously."Where were you when I was looking for a new partner?"_ Damn you, Singer, why didn't you let me meet this one?_

Dean bristled visibly as his dog showered affection on Ronnie. "He was already on the road with us," he smirked. _That's right, Madam Ooh-I'm-The-Dog-Whisperer, he was on the job four weeks before your prodigy there._

"I understand he had some, er, excitement on his last trip," she commented casually, smiling sympathetically at Dean. _And now that I've met you, the idea of you being set on fire and pantsed by your own dog is actually funny._ "No real damage done, I hope?" _If you're currently bald from the waist down, I might just laugh out loud._

"Er, just some, um, cosmetic damage," Sam assured her. _Yeah, his ego was scratched all the way back to bare metal._

"Yeah, he only came charging in and saved everyone in the building," added Dean. _You are a total poopy-headed assbutt. So there._

"Er, Bobby says you've had Hunting dogs before," commented Sam. _You'll have to excuse him - I think one of us was adopted, actually._ "He says you've got Joni controlling the, er, alien blood pee thing, lighting up graves on command." _Please tell me how you did that, I'm running out of shirts._

"Yeah, she's a fast learner, this one," Ronnie replied, "If Bobby will let us use the fireplace, I can show you how we did that_." I'd be happy to help with any questions you have, because Jimi is a wonderful dog, and it will annoy your brother and frankly I think that would amuse me. _"Have you guys had a dog before?"_ Your brother's expression tells me you haven't. Awww, look at the way his lip twitches when he's getting angry. It's kinda sexy._

"Provided you promise me you won't burn the place down, you kids go right ahead," smiled Bobby indulgently. _Ah,_ _family._ "Who wants cookies?" _Or that time a spirit tossed me into the offal bin at that abattoir, kinda gross, but, yeah, strangely warm and fuzzy._

"Cookies would be awesome, Bobby," Sam told him, his smile becoming slightly desperate_. Maybe if Dean's eating something, he'll have fewer brain cells to use to be obnoxious._

"I need a beer," scowled Dean, starting to get up. _I'm gonna draw glasses on you AND your dog before we leave here, and your photo is totally going to the bottom of the door. _

"S'okay, we'll get this," Ronnie told him cheerfully, holding up a hand to forestall him. She called Joni away from Sam. "Joni: Beer." Joni trotted briskly out of the room, and Ronnie turned back to Dean, an earnest expression on her face. "I'm glad you all emerged pretty much unscathed," she said solicitously. _Watch this, pretty boy._

From the kitchen came the sounds of Bobby greeting Joni, the refrigerator door opening, and glass bottles tinkling. A moment later, Joni came trotting back into the living room with a bottle of beer in her mouth. Ronnie waved her towards Dean; the pup waited until he took the bottle from her, then returned to Ronnie's side.

"Good girl," Ronnie praised her, with a polite smile at Dean. _Suck my dick, Winchester._

"Wow," commented Sam, "That's an amazing trick!" _Dean's going to be in a bad temper about it for the next two days, but the expression on his face right now? It's so worth it_. "Does she fetch anything else?"_ I'm a baaaaaaad little brother, I really am._

"A couple of other things, yeah," Ronnie replied. _More than your big bro can count without taking his shoes off, I'll bet._ She proceeded to demonstrate Joni's 'Fetch' vocabulary, including knife, gun, shotgun, salt, water, bag, blanket, rope, key, torch, and...

"Joni, find a friend!" yipped Ronnie in an excited voice. The pup threw herself enthusiastically into Sam's lap, and began to kiss his nose.

"Hey, knock it off!" he laughed, "Oh, yes, I've missed you too!"

"Makes sense, I suppose," glowered Dean, "One little bitch likes another little bitch. Of course, Jimi here has a nose for bad guys," he continued smugly, "Which I think is a more useful talent in our line of work." _I'm sure we could find you a place in the circus, though – your dog can perform, and you can be exhibited as a freak, The Amazing Giant Smart-Ass._

Ronnie's face changed. "Joni," she growled in a low tone, "Where's the jerk?" _Oh, you asked for this..._

Joni immediately jumped from Sam's lap, and sat in front of Dean, where she put her ears back and snarled at him, teeth showing. She was not large for her age, so the overall effect was 'Awwwwww' rather than 'Aaaaaaaargh!'

For Sam, however, the effect this had was 'Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!'

"She has totally got you worked out, bro!" he stuttered out through the laughter_. I am never going to hear the end of this. And right now I SO don't care._

Dean and Jimi exchanged a look. _Aren't there days when you wish you were an only child?_

Bobby arrived with coffee and cookies, beaming at his strange clan. _Ah, family. _"Too smart for her own good, that animal," he announced fondly. _Kinda like getting that load of custard dumped down my overalls in that haunted bakehouse... _"So, then, what do you girls have planned next?" _Or maybe even the time I had to sit in a bath full of spaghetti, that there was one of THE weirdest counter-spells ever written..._

"You wouldn't believe it," groaned Ronnie, "Another bloody rugaru. We've only just toasted one – they must be putting something in the water." She took a drink of coffee, and sighed. "Before I go, I can explain how to teach Jimi to fetch things," she told Sam. "When he's old enough to Hunt with you, it'll be useful_." The fact that it'll piss your brother off is in no way a motivating factor._

"Hey, hey, what do you mean, 'When he's old enough' to Hunt with us'?" demanded Dean. "He is old enough. He Hunts with us now!" _You complete, total, UTTER poopy-headed assbutt. With extra poopy-headedness._

"When he's grown up enough, matured some more, I mean," explained Ronnie with a smile. "He's clearly not ready just yet. It's okay, males often take longer to mature enough mentally to Hunt seriously. It's the testosterone, I guess. Not their fault, it affects their upstairs brain." _A bit like you, really, Dean._

Dean put his beer down in the same careful way he usually put down his drink before beating the crap out of some idiot who'd accused him of cheating at cards, darts or pool. "Jimi will be accompanying us on our next Hunt," he announced with a scowl, "Sam has found us a job in Kentucky, haven't you, Sam?" _Loathing you and your Accelerated Learning dog is officially my new hobby, you smug cow._

"What? Er, um, there have been some strange sightings of dead people, and a couple of weird deaths," began Sam, "But I don't know if you could call it a job yet..." _Jesus, Dean, how old are you?_

"So we'll be on our way as soon as we can," he finished smugly, "Just as soon as we've taken care of a couple of things." _Game on, bitch – I'm totally drawing Hitler moustaches and swastika tattoos on every single photo that Bobby has of you and Professor Puppy here._

"Uh-huh," Ronnie nodded. _Like growing back that eyebrow, for a start._

"Er, Dean, you know, Ronnie kind of has a point..." began Sam tentatively. He stuttered into silence as his brother shot him a glare of Patented Smug Smirk #3® (Shut! Up! Samantha! Or You And Your Girly Hair Will Regret It). He sighed. "Yeah," he continued in a resigned tone, "I just gotta figure out a few more details on our next job." _She's right about the testosterone poisoning, you know._

"Maybe we could start with the rudiments of the basic 'Fetch' command," suggested Ronnie with a sympathetic smile at Sam. _Are his buttons always this easy to push?_

"That'd be great, Ronnie, thanks," he replied. _Don't get me started._

Sam and Ronnie began some basic retrieval drills with Jimi, as Bobby watched on an applauded the pup's efforts. _Or that demon-infested chalet where we dragged those sonsabitches into the hot tub laced with holy water, that was actually kinda warm and fuzzy, too..._

Dean excused himself, and headed for the kitchen. Sam's relentless anagramming, followed by the Socialising From Hell With That Smartass Limey Harpy, had left him in a bad temper. A little bit of photo defacement would be just the thing about now...

As he entered the kitchen, he noted with satisfaction that the picture of Jimi with him and Sam was at the top of the refrigerator door. Good, he thought, scrabbling around on the counter top for a pen, The Natural Order is at least intact in one small corner of the world.

He was so intent on getting a perfectly proportioned monocle and toothbrush moustache drawn on Ronnie in Joni's photo that he didn't notice anything... odd about JImi's photo.

In fact, it wasn't until after breakfast the next day that he exploded when he noticed the seamlessly photoshopped perfect pair of 36DD assets grafted onto his own chest, along with the writing:

**_Dean, darling, collagen or Restylane? You MUST tell me where you got your lips done, they look COMPLETELY natural! R._**

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><p>That bit about the Christmas dinner gathering? I just wrote down what happened at the last one I went to *shudder*. There's a reason I stopped going to them...<p>

Ahem. Reviews are the Warm Spaghetti in the Bath Of Life.


	5. Chapter 4

It's something of a relief to know that my family isn't the only one out there that borders on pathological at extended clan gatherings - it might be fun to swap with somebody. (Mine still speculate not-very-discreetly about my sexuality; the fact I'm married doesn't convince them one way or another, especially Great Aunty Lily, who was in the habit of asking my mother whether there is something... _unnatural_ about me. She finally stopped doing that when one Christmas, my Mum turned around and bellowed to me across a backyard full of extended family, "Dear, Aunty Lily would like to know if you're gay. Are you a _lesbian_, dear?")

Ahem. I hope everyone is adequately chocolated out after Easter - I think my Chocolate-Powered Update Inspiration Fairies have all headed off on a recuperative holiday, but we shall press on - your wonderfully encouraging reviews are just as good (if not better), and I thank you for them. Plus, they're considerably less damaging to my waistline.

***gets up on soapbox*** And may I just take this opportunity to say that if _one more person_ asks me whether I watched That Wedding, I shall shriek _shriek **shriek**_ (I be dat antipodean republican ratbag). ***gets down from soapbox***

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><p><strong>Chapter 4<strong>

"This is totally your fault," griped Dean, jamming his shovel viciously into the large pile of dirt.

Sam paused mid-dig and let out a noise of inarticulate, despairing frustration unto Creation. _Why me?_ He asked the uncaring universe, _Why me_?

Sam liked to think that he was a rational, intelligent person, capable of making a coherent argument for a point of view. Screw false modesty – he had a brain, an intellect, and he could wield it like a scalpel, or a sledgehammer, or anything in between. In another reality, he would've made an highly competent lawyer, taking apart an opposing counsel's case with his capacity for analytical consideration of the facts, application of cool logic.

Why then, he pleaded to any sympathetic deity who happened to be listening, why was he so often unable to convince his brother with anything approaching a logical argument?

"What?" he turned to demand of Dean. "_What?_ How the hell is this _my_ fault? Jimi's the one who buried this damned junker!" He shot an annoyed look towards the pup, who lay with his mother and sister, on their favourite truck hood sunbed. "I don't suppose you're going to come help us undo your handiwork?" he asked acidly. Jimi gave him a happy doggy grin, and dropped his muzzle to his paws with a contented whuff. "Didn't think so."

"If you hadn't talked to Ronnie, he wouldn't have done it," pronounced Dean, with all the certainty of a six-year-old announcing that it was the fairies at the bottom of the garden that had nibbled at the chocolate cake that Grandma had left in the kitchen. (Pointing out that the teeth marks in the frosting were too big to be from fairies, Grandma would be firmly informed, possibly with a roll of the eyes, that the offending dentition had obviously belonged to the gnomes that the fairies rode around on. That, or bodybuilder fairies, who were larger because of their use of steroids.)

Sam gritted his teeth. He had worked hard to develop his mind, and had won praise, plaudits and prizes for his abilities at all levels of his education. And yet, somehow, up against Dean, it could be all for naught, like a giant cruise liner, launched with much fanfare and acclamation, only to be brought undone by the brute force of a mindless chunk of ice. _That's me_, he thought, _I am a Titanic intellect, steaming majestically across the Seas of Reason, knowing that out there, somewhere, a giant Deanberg may come looming out of the fog at any minute..._

He turned back to his brother. "So, run this by me again Dean," he said, with venomous calm, "You throw a tantrum when you notice a note from Ronnie written on a photo which has been unflatteringly yet quite competently and, if I'm honest, rather amusingly altered..."

"She gave me boobs, Sam! That cow gave me boobs!" Dean positively shrieked in outrage.

"... and very nice they look on you, too – think of the fun you could have with yourself. So, while throwing your tantrum, you kick the refrigerator, dent the door and damage the hinges..."

"It's an old appliance," grumped Dean, "Bobby over-reacted. I'll hammer out the creases in the hinges, and the door will still close, probably, so long as he doesn't put any big bottles in it."

_Bridge, we have reports of Deanbergs being sighted in the lane._

"...Okay, so you maim the refrigerator, then when Bobby takes you to task for behaving like a six-year-old who's stolen a classmate's Ritalin, you tell him that next time Ronnie visits he should perform an extremely vulgar act upon her that is probably not even legal between informed consenting yoga practitioners..."

"She messed with my Baby!" hissed The Righteous Man in righteous anger, positively glowing with moral, ethical and mechanical indignation. "For that ALONE, she deserves to DIE!"

_Engine Room, drop speed to Slow Ahead..._

"Dean, she stuck a Volvo decal on the grill with Sellotape. You then up the ante by suggesting that one of Bobby's grandfurchildren would better serve humanity by being turned into a pair of fluffy slippers..."

"She'd look good as a pair of slippers," Dean mused. "Or maybe a handbag. Or a small rug, maybe, a mat, with the head still on, one that you could put in the bathroom so your feet don't get cold in winter."

_Deanberg! Deanberg! Dead ahead!_

"...Right, right, you want to turn Joni into a toilet mat, then when Bobby looks out into the yard this morning and sees that Jimi has not been satisfied with chewing on that hatchback he wanted the engine from but he had to bury it as well, you suggest to Bobby, using language that would make George Carlin faint that he call up – what did you call her? Oh, yeah, The Dog Fisterer – and ask how to get him to dig it up again." Sam paused. "Yeah, I see the logic now. Jimi buries car, Dean provokes Bobby to anger with stupid over-reaction, must be Sam's fault. You're the one who should've studied law."

"Well, it is," declared Dean defensively, refusing to give ground. "If you hadn't spent so much time fussing about Jimi's digging, he wouldn't have done it!"

_Engine Room Full Astern! Helm hard to starboard!_

Sam rolled his eyes. "All I wanted to do was try to get a handle on this digging thing," he tried to explain_. _"Maybe teaching him to do it on command. Think how useful that would be for digging up graves, if we could get Shovelpaws to use his powers for good instead of evil."

"I notice that Little Miss Perfect Pup hasn't learned to dig up graves yet," sniped Dean, "Although maybe I missed that bit – what with learning to fetch Mommy's stuff and speak Latin and dance the Macarena and cure crippled children, she probably doesn't have time for that, not with being Canine Ambassador To The U.N. as well..."

_Bridge, the hull's holed below the waterline, taking on water, engines are flooded, multiple bulkheads breached..._

Sam turned back to the job at hand. "She knows stuff, Dean, stuff we need to know. Stuff that will help Jimi be a Hunter's dog."

"Oh, yeah, she made that perfectly clear," Dean nodded vigorously, digging his own shovel into the dirt covering the unfortunate car that was Jimi's most recent buried treasure, "She's been training dogs to Hunt forever, and she knows everything. How did she put it? 'Oi was trining up moi ferrst dog fer the Hunt the noight the best paaaart of yew ran down the crack of yer marther's arse'."

_Losing trim, going down hard by the bow..._

"After what you called her, I'm surprised that's all she said," replied Sam acidly.

"I didn't 'call' her anything – I simply described her," defended Dean. "I call it as I see it."

"Dean, setting aside for the moment the fact that you saw it wrong, how does it qualify as polite conversation when you 'describe' someone as a Smartass Harridan Limey?"

"Well, she's a smartass, she's a harridan, and she sounded like a Brit." Dean shrugged. "Two out of three aint bad. You'd know that, if you listened to the right sort of music."

_Deploy the lifeboats! Women, children and Latin speakers first!_

"Jesus, Dean," huffed Sam, "You're lucky she was happy to put it down to ignorance. Calling an Australian or New Zealander a Brit is the one truly unpardonable insult you can offer them! I saw people get their faces rearranged for that at Stanford!" He shuddered at the memory of a slightly inebriated student get an education he wouldn't forget regarding accents, geographical origin and the denizens of the Antipodes. "And that was just the women!"

"Yeah? So, which one is she?" asked Dean idly.

"I'm not sure, and I wasn't game to ask!" replied Sam. It had been the one moment when Ronnie's demeanour of amused tolerance had slipped, before she laughed off Dean's mistake. For that second, Sam had found that he couldn't stop staring at her teeth...

"Shstdt," mumbled Dean.

"Sorry, Dean?" asked Sam with exasperated earnestness, "What was that? Again with a few vowels, for the audience at home."

"She started it!" snapped Dean.

_Fuck it, fire the distress rockets and abandon ship - you're on your own people, goodnight, just try to stay afloat until help arrives. _

"Dean, you were the one who decided to loathe her," Sam told his brother sternly. "Despite your ignorance, insults and unrepentant Dean-ness, she's willing to help with Jimi." He rallied his neurons (thrashing desperately in the icy Sea of Reason) for one last try. "She says that Jimi will grow into a magnificent Hunter, given a bit of time, and some training. She says he's got all the instincts, he just needs to grow up some. He's getting the hang of 'Fetch' already. She says the digging is a developmental thing – in a pack, he would now be old enough not to be regarded as a pup anymore, so he'd have to fend for himself in the feeding order, and burying things is part of that behaviour of protecting what he thinks is his. She says..."

"So, if Ronnie says you should jump off a cliff, I suppose you'd both do that, hmmm?" Dean enquired tartly. "Maybe I should ask her to tell you to cut your hair, would you do that, because Madame Scarface says so?"

_Nearer my God to thee, Nearer to thee..._

"Fine, okay," sighed Sam, knowing when he was beaten. Something about Joni and her Hunter just put Dean's hackles up, and there was no reasoning with him once that happened. "We have someone with a lifetime of experience training dogs to Hunt, who is willing to help us with it since we haven't done it before, but you're sulking because your ego is wounded because her dog is making progress a bit more quickly than yours. Never mind, I'm sure we'll muddle through and figure it out on our own before any of us get killed. Or buried."

"Attaboy, Sammy," smiled Dean, "I knew you'd see reason. With your brain and Jimi's talents and my awesomeness, we can't fail."

_Oh, look, there goes Leonardo diCaprio down into the depths, looking amusingly blue._

By the time the Deanberg had completely sunk the Samtanic (_no survivors, just a sad floating slick of drowned arguments and the occasional hypothermic bitchface, bobbing along as Celine Dion warbled away in the background_), they had uncovered enough of the small hatchback for Dean to hook up Bobby's truck, and tow it clear. By way of apology to Bobby for damage to innocent kitchen appliances, anatomically unlikely suggestions and intemperate language, they teamed up to pull the block out of the wreck before heading back inside.

"We pulled that engine for you," Dean told a still-slightly-glowering-and-not-at-all-yogic Bobby, "Though what you want to do with it I don't know, besides maybe pull the skin off a custard."

"Good work," Bobby replied, pouring coffee. "So, what are you idjits planning on doing after you deal with the trailer?"

"Sam's found us a job in Kentucky," Dean told him, "Dead dudes walkin' around after hours and freaky deaths."

"Well, we don't know for sure that it's dead dudes," qualified Sam, "There have been some alleged sightings of deceased people, but the details so far are a bit sketchy – stories on local papers' sites. It's difficult to say how credible the witnesses are; one of them sounded like a bit of a crazy, calls herself a psychic, comes across as a woman with too many bangles and too many cats, and I haven't had a whole lotta luck getting at details of the allegedly 'freaky' deaths. There's not necessarily a correlation I can find yet."

"Come on, Sammy," smiled Dean, "It's dead dudes and freaky deaths! That's practically a written invitation to us. We should at least go check it out."

"And, of course, the fact that 95 per cent of the country's bourbon is produced in Kentucky has nothing to do with your enthusiasm for this job," said Sam seriously.

"The fact that the trip will offer an opportunity to make obeisance unto the Gods Of Bourbon is a happy coincidence," intoned Dean primly. "While we're that close, it's practically compulsory."

_Yooooooooooouuuure heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere, there's nooooooooooooothiiiiiiiing I feeeeeeear…_

"Dean..."

"Sam," frowned Dean, "You know what happens when you mock the Gods Of Pie? Terrible things happen when you mock the Gods Of Pie."

"Yeah," sighed Sam, "It usually results in you insisting that we drop whatever we're doing and find someplace that dishes up artery-clogging desserts..."

"... A Temple where we may observe the Worship Of Pie," corrected Dean piously. _Pieously_,_ even_, gibbered a corner of Sam's brain that was still in shock after the horrifying tragedy of the Samtanic.

"The only thing I get to observe is your tonsils, because you insist on talking the whole time you are eating," grumped Sam, "Which is a sight that frequently leaves me thinking I need to say a few Ave Marias to the big round porcelain altar that flushes."

"Well, mocking the Gods Of Bourbon will bring even more terrible juju upon you," Dean intoned seriously.

"If they make juju as terrible as the Gods Of Whiskey, I will go find a few nice juicy virgins to sacrifice in order to appease them," announced Sam in a voice laced with dread.

"How terrible exactly is the juju of the Gods Of Whiskey?" asked Bobby, intrigued although he knew it probably wasn't a good idea to ask.

"It came to pass that after we finished a job in Tennessee and did a distillery tour, they did wax wroth and punish me mightily for mocking them, Bobby," related Sam in a small, awed voice, "They did send their Anointed Son, His Holy Deanity, to wear his sacred shorts on his head, and serenade me with terrifying renditions of 'Kashmir', 'Highway to Hell' and other hymns unto their greatness. He did torment me all night, with singing, and elaborate prayers to the Head God, who's named Ralph, apparently, offered unto the Porcelain Altar, and also unto the Venerated Trash Can, yea and verily did he even anoint my unworthy boots with his holy hurling..."

"Just get back to the Laptop Dancing, Samantha," growled Dean, "See if you can get a handle on what we're likely to be dealing with."

"I got a stack of old towels for ya," Bobby said, "You're going to need 'em if His Holy Deanity insists on taking Jimi along."

"Thanks, Bobby," replied Sam a bit gloomily – he really wasn't looking forward to a trip of more than 900 miles with a prone-to-technicolour-carsickness half-hellhound. He was anticipating at least one Level Four Event (back seat, up to four towels, one window and both Winchesters OR two windows and one Winchester affected). "Still, Ronnie gave me a recipe for a houndswort brew that she says will probably help, one of her previous dogs was a bit of a puker as a small puppy, and..." his brain suddenly went 'sproing', and ran the conversation of the last several minutes back. He was pretty sure they'd missed something...

"Trailer?" he asked Bobby in confusion. "After we deal with the trailer? What trailer?"

"That trailer," answered Bobby, casually jerking a thumb out the window. "My flatbed trailer. The one I use to collect more than one chassis at a time. The one your dog started buryin' while you two were having your lover's tiff outside over the hatchback."

The Winchesters exchanged a look of alarm, and sprang to the window. One of Bobby's trailers was indeed buried under a large pile of dirt. Jimi sat atop the heap, looking happily pleased with himself.

"So you two kiss and make up, then go dig it out," Bobby instructed them. "Check the connections on the plug, I don't want dirt foulin' up the electrics."

Dean scowled at his brother. "Follow me," he growled, "And don't say a fucking word."

"Not a peep, bro," replied Sam in a resigned tone.

Bobby couldn't help grinning to himself as he watched the brothers start to exhume the latest of their pup's interments. He'd watched Jimi slink away and start on the trailer while they were digging out the hatchback, but he hadn't wanted to interrupt their bickering when they seemed to be having so much fun. He did feel a little sorry for them later, and took a couple of beers outside for them just as they were finishing.

The bickering had gradually trailed to a halt.

Dean was shovelling while sending slightly worried 'WTF?' glances at his brother.

Sam, for some reason, while he worked, was singing 'For Those In Peril On The Sea'.

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><p>Reviews are the Toilet Mats on the Cold Bathroom Floor Of Life.<p> 


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"I'm calling this one in as a Level Three Event," declared Sam, taking in the puke-smeared chest, sad eyes and miserable expression before him.

The dog didn't look too happy, either.

"Just get us some towels, Sam," sighed Dean, reassuring Jimi, who had finished heaving on the side of the road. It had been such a near thing: the hiccupping had started, Dean swore and wrenched the wheel, bringing the Impala to a screeching halt on the verge, he was out of the car the nanosecond it stopped moving, opening the back door for the pup, and...

"Yeah, Level Three is about right," he agreed.

Six months ago, the trip to Kentucky would've taken the Winchesters a single day of driving. With Jimi accompanying them, it had taken three. The pup got bored easily, was in the habit of howling along with many of Dean's tapes (enthusiastic if somewhat-off-key singalongs was something he had apparently 'inherited' from Dean). Jimi also had a bladder the size of a walnut (requiring frequent bathroom stops), excitable bowels (also requiring frequent bathroom stops), was still prone to technicoloured carsickness (not as frequent as the bathroom stops, but a LOT more desperate), and infused the car interior with the lingering fragrance (although 'stench' was the word Dean used) of lavender-scented Hellhound farting whenever he dozed off, which necessitated extra delavenderisation stops for Dean's benefit. Well, for Sam's benefit, too, because his brother could complain for an hour at a time about The Evils Of Lavender, and he didn't mind stretching his legs when they stopped.

"Maybe we should try the houndswort," Sam suggested, holding out one of Bobby's supply of towels to his brother.

"You are not feeding him that crap," growled Dean, wiping at the mess on his shirt, "Have you smelled it? It's disgusting! I haven't smelled anything that disgusting since Bobby did that counter-spell that needed a bathful of spaghetti!" He shuddered at the memory of the old Hunter sitting in the bath, a strangely contented smile on his face, as he read from an Italian witch's grimoire.

"Ronnie says her dog Mako was a power puker when he was little," persisted Sam, once they were back on the road, "Ronnie says that once, before she tried out the houndswort, he got the windscreen, dash, three windows, her, her Hunting buddy and a passing motorcycle, which I guess would constitute a Level Six Event, maybe you could call it the Perfect Puppy Puke, and..."

"Jesus, when did you become President of the Ooooh We Think Ronnie Is So Fucking Fantastic Squeeee I Think I Just Came In My Pants club?" snapped Dean.

"What?" Sam glared at his brother incredulously. "All I suggested was…"

"No, no, you're right, I apologise," Dean nodded magnanimously, "I got that wrong. You are not the President. That would be Bobby. You are the head cheerleader. That's okay, you have the height to carry off the outfit, although you might want to do something about your hairy legs. Sparkly tights, maybe."

"Dean…"

"Did you remember to pack your pom-poms?" Dean asked solicitously. "You know you can't practise your cheers properly if you forgot your pom-poms."

"Dean…"

"_Ronnie, Ronnie, she's so slick,  
><em>_I'd really like to suck her dick..." _trilled Dean

"Dean..."

"_She's so clever, I think maybe  
><em>_I would like to have her baby..."_

"Dean..."

"Although you're really getting too old to wear your hair in pigtails, Sam, it's time you started braiding it, like a big girl."

They finally arrived at their destination, a small town south of St Louis ("Dean, I am going to start fining you a dollar for every time you refer to a place like this as 'Bumfuck, Some State'.") Accommodation seemed strangely hard to come by; as the one who did not look like he'd lost a fight with a horde of Killer Zombie Fingerpaint-Flinging Pre-Schoolers, Sam asked why at the desk of the motel they finally pulled in to.

"There's a lot of visitors in town for the Farewell to Fardlehaus Hall," he reported back, waving a flyer. "It was a selective school that closed down years ago. It's going to be redeveloped, but there's going to be a big party to farewell the place. Lots of old staff and students attending, plus 'the sale of many books and items of academic, esoteric, alchemic and totemic interest and curio value'." Scanning the text, he continued, "Maybe we should go check this out, see if there's any books that might interest Bobby."

"The only thing I'm interested in checking out right now is the water pressure," grumbled Dean, opening the car door for Jimi to get out. "Okay, fella, bathroom. Now." he told the pup. Jimi hung his head, squonked sadly a couple of times on his toy pig, and headed for the bathroom with the air of a condemned man being conducted to the gallows.

When Dean and Jimi emerged later, one looking happier and one looking sadder, Sam had his laptop and some local newspapers open.

"The two recent deaths," he told Dean, "Two members of the local Council. Long-time residents, family men, no known enemies, no apparent motive for attack. 'Unusual Circumstances', apparently. Then," he turned a page, "there's The Headmaster."

"The Headmaster?" asked Dean dubiously. "Oh, no, Sam, not someone who's first name is 'The'. Like The Chief. Dear God, no."

"No, Dean…"

What are you doing trawling the freaky personals anyway?"

"Dean, I'm not…"

"I worry about you, Sam," Dean frowned. "You need to get laid, but not like this. You have the God-given talent, and I have taught you all I can, young Padawan."

"Dean, really, no," Sam tried, shooting Dean a quick Bitchface #5™ (My Private Life Is SO None Of Your Business, Jerk).

"I swear, you try to prank me with some shaved-down gorilla wearing leather chaps who wants me to call him Professor Dumbledore and offers to spank me with his wand, and I will give you a haircut that will make all the other cheerleaders tease you to death in the girls' change-room."

"Dean, will you just..."

"Unless you can find me someone called The Headmistress," grinned his older brother, "That, I could probably work with, you know, she says she's going to call me into her office because I've been a baaaaaaad boy..."

"DEAN!" barked Sam in the voice he usually reserved for use on Jimi when he caught the pup doing something naughty, like abducting socks or chewing furniture or eating potplants or pantsing police officers. "Put your Upstairs Brain on the line, will you? The Headmaster is, wait for it… the local ghost."

He pointed to an old photo in the paper. It showed a stern-looking man in an academic gown and bonnet. "Dr Erasmus Bartlebead. Headmaster of Fardlehaus Hall from 1910 to 1935, then he stuck around as a tutor until he died, in his cottage on the school grounds, in his 90s." Sam scanned the article. "That was in 1962. Says here, the old guy's been quiet for years, but there have been multiple sightings of him in the last few weeks. That would constitute 'dead dude walking around'."

"You think there's some connection?" asked Dean.

"Well, it turns out, these Council members? They had business being on the old school grounds on the days they died," answered Sam, still reading, "Inspection of the facilities. The place is going to be torn down. One of them was found inside the grounds, the other apparently made it out before he collapsed and died."

Dean looked thoughtful. "You think it might be a vengeful spirit? The Headmaster not being happy about his school being decommissioned? How did these guys die?"

"Doesn't say, just 'Unusual Circumstances'. Not 'Suspicious', which to us means 'Extremely Suspicious'," replied Sam. "So, we gotta get hold of autopsy details, ask more about this guy Bartlebead… if there are a whole bunch of old students around, maybe we can find out the local lore on this guy, what he was like, what happened to him."

Sounds like a job for… Dean the Awesome People Person, and his sidekick Francis the Empathy Emo!" beamed Dean, striking an heroic pose. "And their faithful companion, Wonder-Dog!"

"Yeah, we wonder what he's going to dig up or bury next," muttered Sam.

Dean waved a hand dismissively. "I'll don my cape, while you get a pair of shorts on over your sparkly tights – we're going out to mingle." His stomach rumbled. "Anyway, it's time for us to find a shrine to the Gods Of Pie and offer thanks for arriving safely after our long and arduous journey. To the Huntermobile!"

"Next time you might want to try the Gods Of Laundry," observed Sam, eyeing the pile of Jimi-puke-stained clothes, towels and a pair of sneakers. "Or the Gods Of Canine Gastrointestinal Serenity. Speaking of which…" he broke off to look around for the pup, who had gone sniffing around their new den and was suspiciously silent, "Where is he?"

"Jimi? Jimi!" called Dean. A black wagging tail suddenly appeared like a waving flag between the two beds. "Oh, there he is," he smiled, "He didn't go far, he was just… oh."

Jimi sat by the hole he had surreptitiously dug through the carpet and underlay, making a respectable dent in the concrete slab underneath. There were some spectacularly Hellhoundesque scratches gouged out of the concrete slab underneath.

"Well, there goes that security deposit," remarked Sam gloomily.

"You know he likes to have somewhere to stash Oinker Stoinker in these cruddy places," Dean said dismissively, and pulled a small hideous rug over the hole. "They don't have to find out until we're gone," he smirked.

"That's a really bad idea," cautioned Sam, "There's a hole under that rug, and one of us is going to end up turning an ankle on it."

"No we won't, because we know it's there." He called Jimi, who was sniffing suspiciously at the camouflage over his latest hole. "He's a good boy, really. Think of the money he's saving us – we don't have to take him to have his claws clipped."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"I'm sorry about him," Dean told the waitress, a look of apologetic despair on his face, "He has a psychiatric disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Dead Language Correction. I try to get him to take his meds, but, well, look at the size of him. Some mornings, it's all I can do to stop him chewing through the restraints..."

"Damnant quod non intelligunt," muttered Sam to himself, as he corrected. Someone at the diner had decided to get into the spirit of the whole Farewell to Fardlehaus Hall episode by writing up the menu blackboard in Latin. Unfortunately, the person who'd done so was clearly not an ex-student, because the Latin was appallingly bad. It was like waving a red rag at a bull. Or, in this case, a wrongly conjugated verb at a pedant.

"What did he say?" asked the waitress.

"It's 'They mock what they don't understand'," smirked Dean, "Which is clearly wrong, since I got that. There's nothing to worry about, really – just don't let him have any cutlery. The shrink says that if he starts to do this, just let him get it out of his system. And don't give him any candy with red colouring in it." He winked at the waitress, who blushed.

"It should be done right," humphed Sam. "I mean, kids could come in here and see this. What sort of a message does that send? See, this is in the passive voice, it takes the dative..." he gestured with his chalk for emphasis.

"Come on, Sammy," wheedled Dean, "Order food. The nice doctor said that if you can't try to fit in with the normal people, they won't let you out on day release again for ages." He turned a sad face to the waitress. "The electro-shock therapy didn't work, you know," he told her, "In fact, it made his hair grow longer."

"I'll have the chicken salad," snapped Sam, throwing Dean Bitchface #VIII (Tum Podem Extulit Horridulum, Dean). He sighed. "Stultorum calami carbones", he announced to an uncaring world.

"Et moenia chartae," finished an amused voice behind him.

Sam turned to see an old man smiling gently at his efforts. " 'Chalk is the pen of fools'," the old man translated, " 'And walls are their paper'. I think it was an indictment on the intelligence of graffiti artists, rather than young whipper-snappers who use a computer to translate their menu board." He surveyed the pre- and post-Sam parts of the board. "Although I stand to be corrected on that." He turned to the woman behind the counter. "Christine, you do know that if you'd asked me, I'd have done this for you? No need to go outraging your customers' academic sensibilities. If you drop into the clinic later, I have that script written for you."

"Hi there, Doc," she greeted him, handing over coffee and a roll, "I woulda asked, but, well, who'd have thought that there'd be more than one super-geek in here today?" She nodded at Sam.

"Considering the crowd that's descended on this place for the farewell, we geeks will be outnumbering the normal people," replied the man called 'Doc'. He smiled at Sam. "I owe you a thank-you," he said, sticking out his hand. "Peter Hanson, although most folks call me 'Doc', even if I only work part-time now. If any Fardlehaus old boys had walked in and seen that, in my home town, well, I'd never live it down."

"Sam Winchester," replied Sam, shaking hands. "It was pretty bad, but I think I can finish it, if you have somewhere else to be. Did you attend Fardlehaus Hall?"

"Class of 1958," replied 'Doc'.

"Valedictorian of 1958," corrected the woman behind the counter with a grin. "His mother never let anyone forget that."

The old man smiled sheepishly. "I was a scholarship boy. She liked to be snobbish about it on my behalf. You should've heard her once I graduated in medicine. She was just so thrilled to have a doctor in the family, she would inform anyone who wanted to know, and anyone who didn't." He peered keenly at Sam. "You're not an old boy, are you?" he asked, "You don't seem familiar."

"No sir," Sam told him. "I'm here for the, er, esoterica. Books, mostly."

Doc looked a bit wistful. "Oh, Headmaster Bartlebead's library," he sighed. "Amazing. Utterly amazing. It's a crying shame it's being dispersed. The things that man collected. A remarkable man, just remarkable." He stood, apparently lost in happy memory for a moment. "Well, there I go, drifting off into the past. It's an affliction of the old," he confided. "Nice to meet you Sam, always a pleasure to find a young person who takes their Latin seriously." The elderly doctor took his coffee and lunch, and left.

"Looks like you've got a fan, Sam," observed Dean later, as they headed back to their motel. "Although if I were you, I'd make him President, and get yourself something younger and hotter and decidedly more female to be your head cheerleader."

"Malum."

"Canicula."

After some more reading, Sam decided it would be a good idea to try to talk to Dr Hanson some more. "If Doc was at Fardlehaus Hall while Dr Bartlebead was there, he might know more about the man. He's a local, so he's bound to know about the sightings. He might even know about what happened when he died, where he's buried "He was the one who examined the dead guys, too," he mused, contemplating his laptop. He frowned, trying to think of a strategy to meet Doc again. "Maybe if I say I'd like to hear more about Dr Bartlebead's library, offer to buy him a coffee, see if he can introduce me to any more old students..."

"He's still working," pointed out Dean. "Maybe you could make an appointment, go see him."

"I suppose I could feign a migraine onset," he suggested, watching Dean and Jimi share a packet of corn chips. "I wouldn't be lying completely if I said I was being plagued by a headache," he observed a bit more tartly than was strictly necessary.

"Tell him it's that time of the month, you got your man-period and the cramps are really bad, so you need a script for something stronger than Midol," smirked Dean, shoving another handful into his mouth. "And I need some painkillers too, to put up with your raging hormonal emoness."

With a sigh, Sam decided that if necessary, he really was going to be able to claim a migraine.

Thirty seconds later, in an unusual display of cosmic sympathy, the uncaring universe threw him a crumb: there was a yelp of "Sonofabitch!" and Dean was rolling on the floor gasping in pain, having turned his ankle on the hole under the rug. An ice pack and a phone call later, they were headed for the local medical clinic.

"Thanks, big bro," smiled Sam, pulling Dean's arm across his shoulder, "I knew I could count on you to help me out."

"It's just twisted," grumbled Dean, with another yelp as pain stabbed at his damaged ankle.

"It's a perfect excuse to go see Doc, is what it is," corrected Sam. They manoeuvred into the Impala. "Now, when we get there, I want to see pain, Dean, I want to see suffering, anguish! Work it!"

Dean glared at him. "I don't know how you did it, but this is your fault. You are so going to make this up to me."

Sam started the engine. "Absolutely. I'm going to wave my pom-poms and cheer for you until you feel better." He smiled fondly at his big brother. "I'll even put on the sparkly tights."

"Bitch."

* * *

><p>I have it on best authority that our own Bartlebead, regular denizen and reviewer of the Jimiverse, is a descendant of Dr Erasmus Bartlebead. And Bitchface #VIII is, of course, Bitchface #8 (You Are Talking Complete Shit, Dean).<p>

Reviews are the Sparkly Tights in the Half-Time Entertainment of Life.


	7. Chapter 6

Oh noes! FFN has iss-ews - again - with the uploading of new chapters. Fortunately, the clever people in the Help Desk forum have figured out a work-around, so a lot of people have ignition. Keep thinking positive waves at the FFN techs, they're no doubt on it as we speak. OMMMMMM!

Thank you, Esteemed Reviewers, I think you're helping me get my groove back. Especially to elf - constructive criticism (so politely offered) is ALWAYS appreciated (anyone who can't take a bit of polite feedback needs to get over themselves). The dialect of English spoken in Australia is closer to that of the UK than the US, and if nobody tells me these things, I'll never improve my style. So I will NOT be throwing kangaroos at you. Unless you want me to. Weirdo.

(The thing is, the thing is... you lot can't tell anybody else this, okay?... the thing is, I am actually half Brit. Half Limey. Yep. It's my nasty, dirty little secret. My Dad is a Pom. But you mustn't tell ANYBODY, all right? Not a SOUL. I'd just DIE if that shameful little tidbit emerged into the public domain.)

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

"So, what's he done to himself here, Sam?" asked Doc Hanson, prodding carefully at his last patient for the day. His manner reminded Sam of the Sioux Falls vet who attended Jimi. The prodding elicited a yelp from Dean. Sam suspected he might really be in a bit of pain; despite being under instructions to act the part, it was the sort of yelp that Sam was more accustomed to hearing from Jimi when the vet took his temperature.

"He turned it on a gutter," supplied Sam, "It's probably just twisted, but he was rolling around and shrieking so much, I thought we should get it checked out."

"Well, I'm quite sure it's not broken," Doc assured them. Another careful tweak made Dean jump. "Whoa, he didn't like that."

"Yeah, he's always been a bit of a baby about pain," smiled Sam, giving his brother a sympathetic look. Dean glared at him.

"He's damaged this before, hasn't he?" queried Doc, assessing pre-abused ligaments. "Football, was it?"

"Er, yeah, he was the sporty one," nodded Sam. "His coach called him The Piñata – always right in the centre of play, but one good hit in the right spot, and he just cracked, went to pieces and hit the ground." He patted Dean's shoulder fondly. Dean shot him a look that clearly warned _Tonight, Samantha, you AND your hair die in your sleep_.

" 'He' is right here in the room with you two," grumped Dean, squirming uncomfortably.

Doc chuckled. "The Piñata, heh heh… I had a big brother like you," he smiled.

"What, incredibly charming, devastatingly handsome and irresistable to the ladiessszzzOW!" Dean's smirk turned into a pained yowl.

"Yes, he was," agreed Doc, "Until he hit forty, the junk food and drinking caught up with him and he put on fifty pounds. Apparently, women don't want to go home with the Michelin Man. Who knew?"

Sam could barely keep a smirk of his own in check. "Did your brother go to Fardelhaus Hall, too?" he asked.

Doc snorted with laughter. "No, Gordon went to the local high school, where they worshipped sport above academic achievement. His coach called him The Pitbull."

"Because he was fearless and tenacious and terrifying to the opposition," supplied Dean.

"More because he lacked self-control, couldn't be let off the leash in public and used to piss on the carpet at away games," corrected Doc without missing a beat. Sam laughed out loud. "Dr Bartlebead had very definite Opinions about the boys from the high school," the elderly man grinned. "None of them good. Used very interesting words. We had to look some of 'em up."

"You knew Dr Bartlebead?" asked Sam.

"Oh, yes." Doc was happy to chat with Sam about the old man, with Dean's occasional squawks punctuating their conversation. He was, apparently, much admired by staff and students. "And the books he collected, just amazing! Seventeenth century manuscripts, arcane things. Spell books, even! Stuff that was actually banned in English translation, some of it probably counted as 'obscene' back then, anything he thought might be more interesting than a dull text book."

"He let students read his antique books?" Sam marvelled, imagining what Bobby would do if a horde of teenagers swarmed through his study. There would probably be firearms involved.

"He encouraged it. He wanted us to experience Latin as something more than a dead language kept on life support only for the torture of school boys." Doc began strapping the offending ankle. "You should have seen the turnout for his funeral. They had to move the service out of the chapel and into the Great Hall."

"So he was buried locally, then?" Dean prompted, with a wince.

"Oh, yes, behind the chapel," smiled Doc. "Fardelhaus was his home." The old doctor snorted in amusement again. "After his death, boys used to say that if you went to his grave after dark and poured a cup of cocoa over it, his ghost would appear, and help you with your Latin." He looked wistful. "I suppose they'll have to relocate him, when the place is demolished. He wouldn't like that. All in the name of progress, the Council tells us. There you go, all done," he told Dean, who stood up, testing his ankle gingerly. "I'm sure you know the R.I.C.E. drill. I'll prescribe some analgesics, so you can both get some sleep tonight." He shared a quick smile with Sam.

"So, have you ever seen Dr Bartlebead out for an evening stroll?" asked Dean, wincing as he took a tentative step. Doc laughed.

"Oh, aren't you a bit old to be believing in ghosts?" he chided gently. "I've never seen him, but there are plenty who claim they have." His face became disapproving. "Young idiots from the high school have claimed to have been chased out of there by him. For ex-students, though, I think it might be wishful thinking. The idea that the old boy is still there…" He handed a prescription to Sam. "I hope you find some interesting books in the sale," he added.

"I'm sure I will," Sam told him, "Thank you, Doc. It's been a pleasure chatting with you."

"Try to keep him off it for a day or so," instructed Doc. "No chasing cats on that ankle, you," he wagged a finger sternly at Dean, then grinned and scooted out of his office before Dean could squawk in outrage.

"The nerds are double-teaming me," he griped as he hobbled out of the clinic.

"It's only going to get worse," Sam assured him cheerily, indicating the increased number of people, mainly men, who were out and about, "For the next few days at least, the geeks will outnumber the normal people, remember?"

"Wake me when it's over," scowled Dean, heading for the Impala. "So, it sounds like Dr Beetlejuice…"

"Bartlebead," corrected Sam without rancour.

"Yeah, yeah, Dr Beetlebreath might not be happy about having his final resting place disturbed, so decided to off a couple of the guys responsible for approving it. We gotta go check out his grave. May just be a straightforward salt and burn."

"Didn't Doc just tell you to stay off your ankle?" queried Sam.

"Like hell," growled Dean, "You don't go pokin' at a potential angry spirit without OW!"

"That's right Dean," agreed Sam, grabbing his stumbling brother's elbow, "I never go anywhere with a nice clean freshly ironed 'OW!' because you never know when you might need one." He indicated opened the car door, and let Jimi out. "Why don't you two go over there," he indicated the park next to the lot, "While I get your stuff, and you can let Jimi run around a bit?"

"Smartass," hissed Dean, wincing. "Get me pie," he added testily, heading carefully for the bench while Jimi bounded next to him, sniffing curiously at the wrapping on his ankle.

Sam left Dean sulking on the bench, while Jimi barked at some ducks on the ponds in the park. By the time he returned, drugs and pie in hand, Dean was slouching comfortably on the bench, deploying The Killer Smile to a young lady in running gear as she punched her number into his phone. He waved cheerfully as she continued her run, and smiled happily at Sam.

"Thankfully the entire town hasn't turned into old male geeks," he declared with some relief, "And I am not yet ready to turn into the Michelin Man."

"Some days I get a mental picture of future you souping up your electric wheelchair, and terrorising the female staff of some unsuspecting nursing home," sighed Sam. "If there's just one cute chick at your funeral, you'll rise from the dead to grab a handful of ass just one more time. It's going to be extremely embarrassing."

"Not for me," grinned Dean, snatching the pie from Sam.

"Where's Jimi?" asked Sam, looking around.

"He was stalking ducks. And losing," Dean told him, "Since his technique consists of running towards them full tilt barking as loudly has he can. Jimi? Jimi!" A small black shape appeared behind a tree on the other side of the park, and came dashing towards them.

"What's he been into?" asked Sam; as he got closer, it became apparent that the pup's face and front legs were covered in mud. "Oh, God, not more digging."

"Better outdoors than in," Dean asserted, standing, "And I don't see any buildings collapsing, so no harm done. Let's go. _We _have to work out _our_ plan for tonight, for when _we_ go check out Dr Bottlebrush's…"

"Bartlebead…"

"Yeah, Dr Bumblebee's grave."

"Yeah, okay," agreed Sam, sliding into the driver's seat.

Dean did a double take. "Okay?" he echoed.

"Yeah, okay," confirmed Sam. "We figure out what we need to go check on Dr Bartlebead. EMF meter and salt rounds just in case, I guess."

Dean eyed his brother suspiciously. "What happened to 'no chasing cats, Dean'?" he demanded.

"You're right," Sam told him mildly, "It's better not to go after a ghost without backup, if you don't know for sure what the reception will be like."

"I don't believe it," muttered Dean, "What are you planning, Sammy?"

"What? Nothing!" Sam said adamantly, his face utterly guileless. "I'm just acknowledging that in this case, big brother knows best. Besides, there's nothing I could do to stop you even if I wanted to, right?"

"Damn right." Dean subsided, still suspicious but mollified.

"Okay," smiled Sam, starting the engine. "So, I'm thinking we wait until dark, then go after we eat. Getting over the fence shouldn't be difficult – for me anyway. The chapel isn't far from the main gate…"

They didn't have cause to go back to that park again, so they didn't see the name change that took place shortly afterwards. However, Sam did groan and glare at Jimi when he read a story on the local newspaper's website just before they left: "Two Ponds Park To Be Renamed: Appearance Of Third Pond A Mystery. Local Woman Blames Aliens."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

They went back to their motel room. Sam checked the layout of the old school online, Dean scoured local papers. They ate. Sam fed Dean pills. They're not Vicodin or Demerol, see, he said, offering the packet for inspection. Just paracetamol and a bit of codeine, he said. It's like Tylenol with a bit of extra oomph, he said. Anti-inflammatory, he said. They'll help your ankle, he said. Which was all true. He just left out the bit about a small amount of something called doxylamine in the preparation…

Later that evening, Sam checked the shotgun. "I won't be long, bro," he told Dean. "You stay here."

Dean was slouched comfortably against the headboard of his bed, with Jimi snuggled beside him. He nodded carefully. "I'll put twice as many chocolate chips in next time," he said, smiling contentedly at Sam.

"That's good." Sam pocketed extra salt rounds. "You can finish your corn chips while I'm gone."

"You can't elevate toads," announced Dean, "There's not enough sugar in the sump."

Sam looked at his watch. "I should be back inside an hour," he told his brother.

Dean nodded seriously. "Don't get tadpoles in your socks," he cautioned, "They go squishy and your toes turn green."

"I'll steer clear of all amphibians," Sam assured him.

"Don't lose your towel," warned Dean, eyes crossing slightly, "The chickens won't let you past the doughnut." Jimi whuffed for some more ear scratching, and Dean obliged, giggling.

"I got the doughnut access sorted," Sam told him.

"You got enough cotton candy to whiffle the bulldozer?" asked Dean, an edge of concern in his voice.

"Absolutely," smiled Sam, handing the TV remote to Dean. "Here, you can watch TV while I'm gone."

Dean took the remote as if it was a precious, fragile item, and carefully balanced it on his head.

"Your pom-poms are safe with me, Sam," he said dutifully.

"Wouldn't trust 'em with anyone except you," Sam replied, smiling.

"Can I wear your tights while you're not here?" asked Dean in a pleading voice. "Pleeeeeeeeeeease?"

"Only if you promise not to put ladders in them."

"I promise," repeated Dean solemnly. "Pinky swear." The remote slid off his head, landing on the bed. He frowned at it. "I'm not eating that," he declared firmly, crossing his arms. "It's got germs. And Hondas."

"Best leave it alone, then," agreed Sam.

"Cats aren't very good at water polo, are they?" said Dean, looking thoughtful. "I think it might be because of global warming. Icebergs, and penguins and stuff. With bald tyres."

"Yeah, that would explain it," Sam told him.

"Spiders go deaf if you pull all their daffodils off," pronounced Dean.

"That can be a problem, for breeders of pedigree spiders," Sam nodded reassuringly.

"Bobby said the wheelbarrow wasn't big enough, but his tutu turned orange, and all the feathers fell out," Dean said smugly.

"Serves him right, then," commented Sam. "Okay, I'll be back soon. You just stay here, stay off your ankle, and spend some time with the nice drugs in Loopy Land."

"Bring me back a kewpie doll?" asked Dean, with a wistful expression. "With sprinkles?"

"Sure thing, bro," Sam assured him. Dean smiled trustingly, and waved goodbye.

Sam smiled, and waved back. The next time they were short on funds, he mused, he should feed Dean painkillers until he was loopy, then push him on stage at an open mike night; the ensuing spoken word performance would keep them fed for a week on tips alone.

* * *

><p>Combination analgesics are the Germy Hondas in the Deaf Wheelbarrow of Penguins.<p> 


	8. Chapter 7

Ah, combination painkillers. Don't knock 'em until you've tried 'em. Marvellous when the old battle scars are playing up...

Just to clarify, for our Merkin# cousins on the other side of the world - the word 'Pom', being short for 'Pommy bastard', is a mildly pejorative term for an English person. NFI what the derivation is. Meanwhile, I shall stubbornly stick to my anglicised spellings (see? Did one right there), because That's What I Was Taught. 'Tire' is what happens to you when you run out of energy *wags finger querulously*. 'Rancor' is a badly animated monster from a Star Wars movie.

#an affectionate term for an American person.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

The oldest buildings of Fardelhaus Hall were impressive structures of stone. The Great Hall was adorned with two particularly unattractive gargoyles. (Sam's online searching had told him that they had been named Eunice and Muriel some time soon after the school opened, and for more than a hundred years, pranksters had somehow gained access to the roof to dress them in various hats, scarves, and occasionally scandalously inappropriate underwear).

Inside the hall, books and school memorabilia items were on display for farewell festivities, or ready to be offered for sale. Sam ran his torch over the spines of some the dusty, leather-bound offerings on one table. In amazement, he found a mint condition first edition of Baring-Gould's _The Book Of Were-Wolves_, side-by-side with a three hundred year old printing of Pliny's _Natural History_. He tucked them behind a couple of less interesting-looking books, intending to come back and snag them when they went on sale.

What would a school made up entirely of geek clique students be like? he wondered. _It might've been nice to find out_, he thought to himself, heading through the building in search of the chapel.

The chapel was a small, simple building, and he had no trouble locating Dr Bartlebead's grave. His headstone read, simply, 'Dux'. Leader. Even as the school closed down, it had not been neglected: the grass was trimmed, the weeds carefully removed from the edging, and a small spray of flowers rested on the ground. A plastic cup seemed out of place; Sam sniffed it, and grinned. Cocoa.

In a way, it would be sad to disturb the old man, he thought, but it would be a straightforward salt and burn. They could do it tomorrow night, then maybe hang around to check out some more books, Bobby would definitely want that Baring-Gould, as his own was looking a bit well-used…

"I say."

The clipped British accent startled him, and he spun around, raising the shotgun. There stood Dr Bartlebead, a frail, greyed, elderly man of slight build, leaning on a walking stick, resplendent in academic dress, peering keenly at him over glasses.

"What are you doing out of bed at this hour, boy?" the ghost demanded sternly.

"Er…" Sam stumbled, "Um, I… couldn't sleep?"

The ghost looked at him carefully. "What's your name? Speak up, boy!"

"Er, Winchester, Dr Bartlebead," stammered Sam, "Sam Winchester."

The old ghost's expression softened. "Ah, one of the new boys, eh?" he asked.

"Um, yes, Dr Bartlebead," replied Sam, as the old man muttered to himself.

"Winchester, Winchester…" he paused: "Not the lad who corrected the menu?"

Sam's jaw dropped in astonishment. "Er, yes, Dr Bartlebead," he confessed, getting ready to shoot. Dr Bartlebead, however, did nothing more threatening than smile.

"Bully for you, lad," he laughed quietly, "That's what I tell all my boys here. Don't put up with any rubbish from those local hooligans, eh? Don't hide your light under a bushel." The old eyes positively twinkled at him. "Feeling a bit homesick?" he asked sympathetically.

"Um, well… yes, Dr Bartlebead," said Sam. It seemed safest just to keep agreeing with the old ghost.

Dr Bartlebead smiled kindly at him. "It happens to everyone, lad," he explained gently, "It's a big change, a big adjustment to make. But I think you'll like it here." He frowned. "Samuel," he said, with a tinge of disapproval, "Is that a firearm?"

"Um…." Sam looked down at the shotgun in his hands. "Er, yes, Dr Bartlebead."

"Boys are not allowed to keep their weapons in the dorms," the ghost chided him gently. "First thing tomorrow, I want you to run along to Pettimore, the groundsman. Tell him that Dr Bartlebead presents his compliments, and would he kindly stow your weapon in the students' armoury. Come to my office afterwards, I will give you a note for your room master, explaining your absence."

"Uh, yes, Dr Bartlebead. Thank you, Dr Bartlebead," nodded Sam. Somehow, talking to this dead teacher made him feel like he was wearing short pants.

"Good lad." The old ghost took a watch on a chain out of his pocket. "Now, I happen to know that Matron will be brewing up a saucepan of cocoa about now," he continued, "So, why don't you run along, and tell her that I sent you for some of her capital remedy against insomnia?" The kindly old face smiled at him again.

"I… um, yes, Dr Bartlebead," Sam agreed.

"It will help, Samuel. Marvellous stuff. No idea what she puts in it. Secret Women's Business, that, I suppose, eh? Better than Ovid, when you can't sleep." The ghost turned, and made to walk off. "Why don't you visit me in my office tomorrow after Prep?" he said, "And you can tell me how you are settling in."

"Yes, Dr Bartlebead," answered Sam, feeling all of ten years old. "Thank you, Dr Bartlebead."

"Goodnight, then, lad," said the old man with a last kindly smile. He walked away and faded out of sight.

Well, that could've gone a lot worse, Sam told himself on the way back to the car. It would probably be sensible to have Dean backing him up for the salt and burn, though, in case Dr Bartlebead became annoyed at having his mortal remains tampered with. He started the engine, and wondered if any of the diners in town would still be open; for some reason, he had a sudden craving for hot chocolate.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

When Sam got back to their room, Dean and Jimi were cuddled together on Dean's bed, both snoring gently. Sam eased Dean's sneakers off, pausing only when his brother stirred and said "Owwwww, I have an owie, Uncle Bobby, owwwwww," in a voice that threatened to turn into a wail. Sam rolled his eyes, and pulled a blanket over both of them. The night passed quietly, broken only by an occasional noise that suggested his big brother was having a dream involving a like-minded young lady with a fair amount of stamina. Sam ignored it, and hoped Jimi had the sense to get out of the way if Dean's hands started to roam.

The morning was a different proposition altogether. Sam was woken from a peculiar dream of his own (in which he and Dean were bickering over a pair of sparkly panty hose until Bobby, resplendent in a tutu, broke up the argument by wielding a rubber chicken mercilessly) when a sneaker suddenly landed on his pillow.

"Wha…? Oh, you've put a run in them! Ow! What?" he jumped and sat up, startled.

Dean's expression forecast fratricide with the possibility of light morning swearing and actual bodily harm gusting to Force Eight. "What did you put on that pizza?" he demanded. "Give me back my shoe, shoe thief!"

Sam flung the sneaker back at Dean. "I didn't do anything to your pizza!" he snapped. "We ate, I went to scope out Dr B., and when I got back you were asleep, having porn dreams. Again. And if you molested Jimi, you can go hustle the money to pay for his therapy."

"You roofied me!" accused Dean.

"You roofied yourself, jerk," Sam shot back with rolling eyes.

Dean crossed his arms and scowled. "That was stupid," he said resentfully, "What if the ghost had shown up? You could have been thrown into a wall while I was here!"

"Dr Bartlebead's ghost did show up, but the worst thing he did was to suggest that I needed some cocoa." Sam related the previous evening's encounter to his brother, who subsided a bit. But not much.

"Okay," said Dean finally, "Tonight, _we_, and I do mean _we,_ go salt and burn Dr Bongodrum."

"Fine," agreed Sam, "Sounds like a plan".

"And you will go get me breakfast to make it up to me," instructed Dean.

"Yes, Dean, if it means you will stay off your ankle for a bit longer," conceded Sam.

"And you will bring coffee."

"Yes, Dean."

"And you will bring me pie for later."

"Yes, Dean."

"And you will get more corn chips."

"Yes, Dean."

"And you will get beer. Let there be beer!"

"Yes, Dean."

"And you will perform a pom-pom routine to cheer me up."

"Don't push your luck," warned Sam, picking up the keys.

"And M&Ms. And some Nerd Repellent," grumped Dean.

"I hear and obey, O Big Brother," muttered Sam, heading out. Dean flipped him off.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"This place is kinda creepy," declared Dean that evening, looking around the interior of the hall, "And those are two of the ugliest gargoyles I've ever seen." They made their way to Dr Bartlebead's grave.

"It's kind of a shame," confided Sam, as he dug, "He seemed like a nice old guy."

"Well, I'm sorry you won't get the chance to sit down and have the cup of cocoa with him," replied Dean, standing watch with the shotgun, "Seeing as he's such a nice and friendly and grandfatherly murderous spirit."

The ghost didn't show up as Sam carefully broke open the coffin. It contained a skeleton of small stature, dressed in a surprisingly intact academic gown. Dean scattered salt and lighter fluid.

"I hope he goes somewhere peaceful, with lots of books and comfy chairs," pronounced Sam as Dean fished a lighter out of a pocket.

There was a sudden chill breeze from behind them, and…

"Who's there, eh?" They turned to see the ghost of Dr Bartlebead peering at them. His face softened when he saw Sam. "Ah, young Winchester. How did you get on today, lad?"

"Er, it was, um, busy, Dr Bartlebead," Sam replied sheepishly. "But good."

"Excellent. Might I suggest that tomorrow, you run along to the barber, have him do something with that hair. Don't want your new classmates teasing you about it, now, do we, eh? Calling you Samantha?" the ghost asked him good naturedly.

"Um, yes, of course, Dr Bartlebead," stammered Sam, scowling at Dean, who laughed.

The elderly ghost adjusted his glasses, and peered at Dean. "Who do we have here, then?" he asked, taking in the leather jacket and dirty jeans. "Rather a scruffy specimen, certainly." He frowned. "Samuel," he intoned disapprovingly, "You aren't socialising with the boys from the… _local _school, are you?" He pronounced the word as though it tasted nasty.

"Um…" went Sam.

"Hey there, Dr Bumbandit," smiled Dean cockily, flipping and catching the lighter, "Just thought I'd drop in to visit, maybe hold a little barbeque in your honour."

Dr Bartlebead's expression became disdainful. "I dislike the tone of your voice, boy," he sniffed, turning to Sam. "I know it's hard to fit into a new place, Samuel," he told Sam gently, "But you will make friends of your own calibre here at Fardelhaus…"

"What do you mean, 'his own calibre'?" demanded Dean.

"What I mean, you young yahoo," the old ghost replied primly, "Is that we cultivate the development of intellect, manners and taste, here. That does NOT include fraternising with the local hooligans. We certainly do NOT condone their presence on school grounds. I must insist that you leave forthwith, if not sooner." Dr Bartlebead finished with an impressively unimpressed cat's-ass face of utter disapproval.

"Whatever. Condone this," smirked Dean, flicking the lighter and dropping it.

Dr Bartlebead looked shocked as the flames caught and danced cheerfully orange. "You delinquent reprobate!" he hissed at Dean.

"Yup, guilty as charged," Dean smiled angelically.

"Er, Dean," began Sam.

"You philistine!" Dr Bartlebead's high dudgeon knew no bounds.

"I know. It's a God-given talent, but I took lessons as a small child," Dean told him.

"Er, Dean," Sam tried again.

"Vicious, vandalous lout!" quavered Dr Bartlebead.

"I be dat asshole," grinned Dean in agreement.

"Er, Dean," said Sam.

"Not now, Sam," Dean told him tolerantly, "Dr Boogerface is busy scolding me." He nodded pleasantly to the ghost. "Please do continue, it's all very educational," he said.

"You pig-ignorant, ill-educated, wretched arsonist!" squeaked Dr Bartlebead. "You leave me no choice, you young wretch!"

"Oh no, I tremble in fear!" trilled Dean, hefting the shotgun. "What are you going to do, upbraid me to death?"

"Er, Dean," persisted Sam.

Dr Bartlebead stalked forward, bristling with anger. "I am going to write a letter to your headmaster," he said in cold triumph, "Informing him of just what sort of ill-mannered blackguard he is producing in that degenerate institution!"

"I'm bored now. Futue tu ipsem, Grandad." smiled Dean, waving cheerily.

Dr Bartlebead and Sam both blanched in horror.

"Er, Dean," Sam tried once more.

"What, Sam?" asked Dean in an annoyed tone.

Sam pointed to the grave. "He's burning, but he isn't disappearing."

Sam had a point. The mortal remains of Dr Bartlebead were going up in salted smoke, but the old ghost still stood, beyond livid, glaring at Dean, who was starting to think that provoking a ghost who stubbornly refused to be dispelled might not have been such a good idea.

Dr Bartlebead hobbled towards them. Dean lifted his gun, but the old ghost merely rumbled, "I shall see that your father is made aware of your appalling conduct," before disappearing.

"Okaaaaaay, there must be something else keeping him here," conceded Dean.

"Something in the memorabilia display, maybe?" wondered Sam.

"Yeah, that could be it," agreed Dean. "We'll head back to the hall. We gotta finish this. He was starting to look kind of annoyed."

"No, really, you think?" Sam hissed angrily. "I can't think why, after all, you only told him to go fuck himself."

"In Latin," Dean pointed out, backing up with Sam, "I said it in Latin. Just wanted to show him I'm not as ignorant as he thinks I am."

"Why did you have to be so rude to him?" demanded Sam.

"He called me scruffy!' Dean sulked.

"Well, you are scruffy. You had no reason to provoke him."

"He started it. Called me a yahoo."

"Jesus, Dean, what are you, six? And you owned up to everything he accused you of…"

They bickered their way back to the Great Hall, where they began a search for any clue that might lead them to whatever was keeping Dr Bartlebead around.

"What are we looking for?" asked Dean.

"It could be anythiing," answered Sam gloomily, surveying an old-fashioned desk, complete with flip-top lid and inkwell. "He was here for fifty years."

"So we burn down the hall," said Dean promptly. "Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

Sam spun around. "You can't!" he cried, aghast, "You cannot set fire to this place! The books! They don't know what they have here! There's books here that are irreplaceable! You CANNOT torch this place! Don't you DARE even THINK about it!"

There was a chill breeze…

A cold, ghostly hand settled gently on his shoulder. "Calm yourself, Samuel," Dr Bartlebead's voice said quietly, "The books are quite safe. I will deal with this, lad." Giving Sam a reassuring smile, Dr Bartlebead turned to Dean, who scrabbled for his shotgun. "So, the lad fancies himself a scholar of Cicero's tongue," he said mildly. "Yet he can use it only to insult. And crudely, at that." He was suddenly beside Dean. The small wiry old man seized one of his ears, and Dean let out a yelp.

"Dr Bartlebead!" called Sam. The old man waved a hand dismissively to Sam.

"Never fear, Samuel," he reassured Sam, "I've dealt with naughty boys my entire career. This one," he batted Dean's shotgun away, and gave his ear a small twist, extracting another yelp, "Is in desperate need of learning some manners. So, let us begin with his charming suggestion that I perform a vulgar biological action upon my own person, shall we? What's your name, boy?"

"Let go of my fucking OOWWWW!" yodelled Dean.

"Oho, bilingually obscene! What a talented individual!" smiled Dr Bartlebead. "I asked you a question, young man!"

"Stop pulling my eaOOOWWW it's Dean!" shrieked Dean, scrabbling ineffectually at the ghost. "Stop it, that hurt!"

"It's not meant to tickle, son!" barked Dr Bartlebead. "Now, regarding your earlier suggestion. 'Go fornicate with yourself.' What conjugation is that, eh? Giving an order?"

"What the hellOOOOOWWWWW imperative! Imperative form!" squeaked Dean as Dr Bartlebead twisted. "Saaaaaaaaam! Do something!"

"Please, Dr Bartlebead," Sam tried to intervene, but the elderly ghost smiled encouragingly and turned back to his Latin pupil.

"So, if I wanted to express that sentiment more politely, as a suggestion? 'I should like you to go fornicate with yourself'. What tense would that be, eh?"

"You can shove your tense right up youAAAAAAAAAARGH!" Dean found himself on his toes as his ear was twisted. "OW! Ow! Potential subjunctive aaaaaargh!"

"And the conjugation would be…" prompted the ghost.

"Aaaaaargh Velim te futuas!" howled Dean.

Sam scrabbled desperately among the memorabilia, seeking something, anything, that might dispel the old man before he twisted Dean's ear right off.

"And so we make progress!" smiled the ghost. "Now, suppose we wished to phrase it as a polite request, 'I beg you to go fornicate with yourself', the tense required would be…?

"I am SO going to enjoy setting fire to YAAAIPE!" Dean suddenly found himself thrown in an ungainly fashion to sprawl across the old school desk. Dr Bartlebead brandished his walking stick threateningly.

"What TENSE would that be, young man?" he repeated, swatting Dean on the backside with his stick.

"Ow! Fuck! OW!" squawked Dean, as his swearing earned him another swat. "Stop it! Saaaaam! Ow! Genitive! Genitive of purpose!"

"Very good, very good," conceded his educational tormentor. "Conjugate, please."

"Saaaaaaaam!" _swat_ "Ow!" Dean yelped as another swat was delivered. "Um, te, te rogo, et futuas te ipsus. Ow! OW!" His mistake earned another swat. "Ipsum! futuas te ipsum! Saaaaaaaaaam!"

"I'm looking, I'm looking!" yelled Sam frantically.

"Now, if offering friendly advice to one of your no doubt equally charming compatriots, perhaps 'It behooves you to go fornicate with yourself'," continued Dr Bartlebead serenely, gesturing with his stick, "What form would that take?"

Dean eyed the stick as the old ghost waved it. "Um, the infinitive?" he answered uncertainly.

"The infinitive with…?" the stick waggled menacingly.

"With an extra helping of screw you, you old..." _swat swat _"AAAAARH! OW! Infinitive with impersonal verb!" screeched Dean. "DO SOMETHING SAAAAAAAAM!"

Sam was burrowing desperately through a box of tarnished trophies when his eyes fell on a display case. Inside the glass sat a fat, fading crimson cushion… an academic bonnet.

"Do mind you language. In English, at least. Let me hear the tense," commanded Dr Bartlebead.

"When my brother finds whatever the hell it is, he's gonna..." _swat swat _"AAAAAAARGH! FUCK!" _swat swat_

No ghost that scrawny should've been able to wield a cane like that. "OWWWW! Te oportet futua tete."

Sam broke the glass, and splashed lighter fluid.

"Very close, do try again," encouraged Dr Bartlebead, with a motivational flourish of his stick.

"What? Um… no, no, wait, AAAAAAARGH!" Dean wasn't quick enough for the old scholar's liking.

_Swat swat_

"OW! OW! Wait wait waitwaitwait, um, te oportet futu_ere _tete?"

Sam flicked his lighter.

"Not so difficult to be civil, is it, eh?" The ghost let go of Dean, who slumped against the desk, and patted him on the shoulder. "It's amazing what the right motivation can do." The elderly man flickered. "Take care, young Samuel," he smiled, "I'm sure you'll make some suitable friends in no time." He waved cheerfully.

Sam found himself waving back. "Er, yes. Thank you, Dr Bartlebead. Goodbye, Dr Bartlebead."

"Goodbye Mr Fucking Chips," mumbled Dean into the top of the desk.

Sam hurried to his brother's side. "It was his doctoral bonnet," he explained. "I torched it."

"Oh, goody," said Dean, not moving. "That makes me feel so much better."

"Can you stand up?" Sam asked anxiously.

"I don't think that's going to be a problem," moaned Dean, straightening slowly. "I think it's sitting down that could cause trouble."

"I'm sorry, bro, I was as quick as I could be," apologised Sam.

"It's okay, dude, I've had worse."

"What? Spankings, or Latin lessons?"

"Both. Simultaneously, on a couple of occasions." Dean winced. "Is my ear still attached?"

"Yeah, it's still there."

"How about my ass? Is it still there?"

"Dean, I am not inspecting your ass..."

"I think my ass is broken."

"Dean, you cannot break your ass, as such..."

"My ass hurts. How does a ninety-year-old hit that hard?"

"Come on, let's get back to the car. Jimi will be waiting." Sam eyed Dean worriedly. "Are you okay to walk? Do I have to carry you?"

"Try it, and you'll be the one who can't sit down for a week," griped Dean, staggering gingerly in the direction of the Impala. "Move over," he told Jimi when they returned, as he sprawled across the back seat. "Not a frigging word from you," he growled at Sam.

Sam did his best to hide his smile. "Not a peep, man, not a peep."

They drove back to the room in silence. Dean staggered in and face-planted on his bed.

"You want an ice-pack?" asked Sam.

"No," replied Dean, "Just give me some of those completely harmless drugs, and wake me up about half past next week."

"Okay." Sam fetched water and pills for his brother. "That was largely self-inflicted, you know," he told Dean, "You were so rude to him. He seemed like a nice old guy…"

"A nice old guy who tried to spank me to death," objected Dean.

"Must just be your awesome people skills," said Sam.

"Future conditional," mumbled Dean into his pillow.

"Huh?" asked Sam.

"Future conditional. Si tu futuas, gaudeum. 'I would rejoice if you should go and fuck yourself'."

"Just as well you didn't try that one on him," Sam laughed. "Get some sleep, bro," he said, heading for his own bed.

* * *

><p>Before anyone asks, yes, I am a tragic Monty Python fan...<p>

Reviews are the Mugs Of Cocoa in the Reading Room Of Life.


	9. Chapter 8

Oh noes! FFN is having iss-ews once more. Reviews are either not working, or patchy at best. And I realise that I am a pathetic addict. Waaaaaah! Dear Regulars Denizens, Casual Visitors and Curious Lurkers of the Jimiverse, if you have reviewed and it didn't show up, I beg you, try to submit it again (tense: potential subjunctive). They make me feel loved and wanted. Like sitting in a bath of warm spaghetti, or getting dropped into the offal bin at the abattoir... However, I'm not going to wait before I post another chapter, because I need to man up. Woman up. And get on with it. Please keep thinking those positive waves at the FFN techs, to help them sort out the glitches. Ommmmmmmmmmmm! It's probably plot bunnies gnawing on the wiring, crapping in the server room. There's even one of the little bastards in here RIGHT NOW, demanding that I interrupt this story and listen to it. Vicious, eebil little mongrels. I'll see how long I can hold out.

PS I have corrected the mistake in Chapter 7. 'I beg you to go fornicate with yourself' is not expressed in the potential subjunctive; it is, of course, in the genitive of purpose. Mea culpa. I am now sitting inside a ring of salt to keep any dead irate Latin teachers at bay. You can't be too careful.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 8<strong>

"I'll, uh, go get food, then, yeah?" suggested Sam late the next morning. Dean appeared to have spent the night face-planted into his pillow, with Jimi on snuggle duty. In the knowing way that animals sometimes have, the pup had joined his Alpha in bed and sniffed suspiciously at Dean's backside, then draped himself across it to provide heat pack therapy and moral support.

Dean gave Sam a brief thumbs up, then his arm slumped back to the bed. "Mmmr." he went. _Ow_, Sam's brain automatically translated from the Deanese.

"How are you feeling?" he enquired.

"Mrrrr rffffff hrrrrrf." said Dean's pillow. _My ass hurts._

"You want me to move Jimi?" asked Sam.

"Nrrrrr, hvvv kdd rrrrrrm." _Nah, he's kinda warm. _"Jfff dnnn ldddmmm llll mmm, dadad bb wrrrrrd" _Just don't let him lick me, that'd be weird._

"Well, you can stay here today and breathe pillow while I go check out books at Fardelhaus Hall," Sam told him, "Then I'll start looking for our next job."

"Crfffrf. Brrrg crfffrg. Mmm prr." Instructed Dean. _Coffee. Bring coffee. And pie._

"Got it," answered Sam.

"Nnn ssb ht wrrmm. D rrr mrrr rfffffff." _And some hot women. To rub my ass._

"Okaaaay, I'll get myself some mind bleach for that particular mental image," griped Sam, picking up his jacket. "Anything else? Some liniment to soothe your bruises? Bath salts, maybe? A down-filled cushion for your tender little tushie?"

A hand twitched. A middle finger extended. "Bfff."

"Jerk." Sam picked up the keys. "How do you do that without suffocating, can you breathe through your ears?"

Dean's head turned, and he smirked at his brother. "Strangely enough, a number of women have asked me that exact same question before…"

Sam fled before his brother could offer any more details.

There were a lot more people around when he made his way back to the diner with the offending menu board, lots of middle-aged-to-elderly men. A babble of voices rose in animated conversations around him.

"It was him, I tell you, I definitely saw him!"

"Impossible. They're all dead now, except for Doc Hanson."

"I'm telling you, it was Matthew! There was no mistaking that hair."

"It was distinctive, wasn't it? Is there some universal law that gifted physicists all have to look like Albert Einstein?"

"And I'm telling you, he's dead. It was in the alumnus Newsletter. There was a picture of them."

"Do you think Peter did the menu board for them here? It's excruciatingly correct. I'm terribly rusty, I think I ordered eggs on toast, but I may well get poached frogs on tiles…"

"Strangely enough, that was a dish that Romans used to serve up, I read about it in one of Doctor Bartlebead's books."

"You really are a nerd, aren't you? Once a nerd, always a nerd. How did you ever manage to breed?"

"Maybe Doctor Bartlebead drifted on down to help out. He would've, you know."

"Aren't you a bit educated to believe in ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night?"

"I saw him, once, walking around in the quad. I could see right through him."

"Presumably after you'd been into Matron's medicinal brandy."

"That's probably what made you see Matthew McKenzie last night."

"There must be something in the water here – Hugh swears he saw Paul a couple of nights ago."

"Have you seen, they're selling off so many things!"

"I suppose the murder will put a crimp in that, the body was found in the hall."

There were general murmurs of agreement as Sam's ears pricked up.

"Was somebody murdered last night?" Sam asked the woman behind the counter when he collected his order.

"Oh, it's terrible," she told him, "Another member of Council! He was out walking his dog before sun-up, and didn't come home. They found him up at Fardelhaus. Such a dreadful thing, it'll put a dampener on the farewell activities."

"Yeah, I guess so," he mused.

He headed for the old school, to be greeted by the sight of a police cruiser, and crime scene tape. A police officer, wearing an expression suggesting that he'd given the same explanation a few dozen times already, told him politely but firmly that there would be no public access to the school today, and the sale of memorabilia would be postponed.

Realising there wasn't much he could do with the place crawling with police, Sam turned to leave, just as Doc Hanson emerged from the hall.

"Hey, Doc!" Sam called to him as he headed for his car. The old man looked startled.

"Oh, Sam," he replied, "What are you doing here?"

"I came up here for the book sale," Sam replied, "But the police say there's been a murder."

"Yes, yes, terrible business, Councillor Aldersen," Doc said, in a distracted manner, fumbling with his keys.

"Was he a Fardelhaus old boy?" asked Sam. Doc looked affronted.

"What? Aldersen? Dom 'The Rhino' Aldersen? Ha! Could barely read without moving his lips. No, he wasn't."

"Do they have any theories yet?" pressed Sam.

"I'll have to do an examination to find out more," the old man said, "Excuse me, I really must go."

On a hunch, Sam asked him, "Doc, did you know Matthew McKenzie?"

Doc flinched, and dropped his keys.

"Er, yes, yes, I did," he said, peering nervously at Sam, "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, somebody in the diner claimed to have seen him, and his friends were teasing him about alcohol-induced hallucinations," Sam answered carefully, watching Doc.

"Yes, well, alcohol can do terrible things to the frontal lobes. Excuse me." He stalled his car once before driving away.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"We're not done here," Sam told Dean, before his big brother could draw breath to complain about the tardiness of the catering. "There's been another murder. This morning."

"What? After we ganked Professor Spanky?" Dean sat up, wincing slightly.

"Yeah. It get's better." He filled Dean in on the conversation he'd overhead, and the jumpiness of Doc Hanson. "I got the distinct impression that Doc didn't have a very high opinion of the late Councillor."

"Maybe we need to go back a step, dig up more on these guys," mused Dean. He sighed heavily. "You wanna go to the library, don't you?" he said wistfully. "The library, the old library, with the old, hard wooden chairs. Figures."

"I'll go," Sam told him, "One of us has to stay with Jimi. He can be the furry hot water bottle to your damaged derriere. Make sure he doesn't chew any furniture, dig any holes, or set fire to anything."

Dean contemplated his phone briefly. "Maybe I'll call Kara, tell her we've been abandoned, it's just me and Jimi here, and ask if she'd like to baby-sit me doggy style." He waggled his eyebrows lewdly.

"Like hell you will," growled Sam. "We need Doc's reports on the victims – how's the ankle now, are you feeling up to a little break and enter, or will I?"

"What I feel up to is a long, hot soak, a steak dinner with all the trimmings and a two-hour ass massage," sighed Dean. "Language lessons are just so, so, so… draining."

Sam pulled a face. "Fine, I'll go snooping later. Here," he pushed the laptop towards Dean, "See what you can find in the way of Fardelhaus newsletters. Don't let Jimi pants anyone."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Sam returned later that night, with pizza, beer and information.

"Hope it's not cold," he apologised, "But they've got a stretch of the road dug up, and I had to find a detour. Why they'd start road repairs when they're expecting so many out-of-town visitors is beyond me…" He noticed the faint dirty paw prints on the floor, and followed them to where Jimi sprawled on his blanket, looking faintly guilty. "Oh, no," groaned Sam, "Tell me he didn't."

"Yeah, he did get away from me for a couple of minutes, there," explained Dean a bit sheepishly, "But it's okay."

"Okay?" echoed Sam incredulously. "Dean there's several yards of tar been dug up!"

"Don't worry," Dean reassured him, "I dragged a couple of roadworks signs off a council truck, nobody will notice a thing."

"I sometimes wonder which one of you should really be on a leash," grumbled Sam, as they sat down to compare notes. Dean was looking happy. Even happier than he should've been when presented with pizza and beer. Suspiciously happy.

"Why are you grinning like an idiot?" asked Sam suspiciously.

"What, I can't be happy to see my little brother return to the fold?" asked Dean in a hurt voice. "Me and Jimi have had a busy day. Jimi's an awesome people person – he makes people want to stop and talk. And give me their phone numbers," he added smugly. "We went for a walk, did some meeting and greeting, worshipped at the Altar Of Pie, chased some tail, sniffed some butt, ate some chicken wings…"

"God, I hope it was Jimi who was doing the tail-chasing and butt-sniffing," Sam commented.

"So far, yeah," confirmed Dean, "But I called Kara, and…"

"Gah!" Sam really did not want the details of what Dean might be planning to do later that night. "Did you get anything resembling research done?"

"Yeah, actually," grinned Dean, turning the laptop around. "Turns out, the reports of a dead dude walking around we got wind of? Not your B&D Latin teacher." He clicked on the laptop. "These guys." The screen showed a picture of four young men, of high school age. "Fardelhaus Hall alumnus newsletter. Vale Matthew McKenzie. One of the 1958 debating team that won some national competition. 'The Apostles', they were called." Sam peered at the photo. One of the boys had unruly hair reminiscent of a troll doll. "Matthew McKenzie, Paul Ablett, Luke Sorensen and…"

"Peter Hanson," finished Sam. The fourth boy in the picture was recognisably a young Doc.

"Yahtzee," said Dean. "So, right now, this place is crawling with Fardelhaus alumni. It's like the Annual Migration Of The Nerds - you'd love it, you wouldn't know whether to burst into tears, or come in your pants. And the older ones are all arguing about who's dead and who's not. It was kinda funny, watching them all accuse each other of senior moments, bad eyesight and going senile. They moved from the diner to a bar a few blocks away, and the argument got even more earnest. Some of it was conducted in Latin." Dean shuddered involuntarily. "Some of 'em swear they've seen Matthew and Paul around the place in the last week, walking early in the morning. But," he clicked another tab, "They're dead. These three guys have all died in the last couple of years. Doc is the last one. In fact, he delivered the eulogy at each funeral."

"They're buried here?" asked Sam.

"Yep. Cemetery's on the other side of town, but they were all locals. Two lived here, one stayed after he graduated," finished Dean, still smiling. "What did you find?"

"Well, isn't that interesting," mused Sam, pulling out his own notes. "Our three dead Councillors were students at the local high school. In fact, they were all on the football team. I found them in the 1958 year book." He pulled out a photocopy of a team picture. "These three. This one's Dominic Aldersen. 'The Rhino'. Lineman."

"Holy crap," breathed Dean, "That's an insult to rhinoceroses everywhere." There was no polite way to put it; as teenagers, the now-dead Councillors had been hulking brutes. He looked back to the photo of the debating team. "You'd have to squash all the debaters together just to make one of them. I mean, how did these guys walk without tripping over their own knuckles?"

"Two of them were repeating their senior year," Sam added. "I guess their coach wasn't too disappointed to have them hanging around for another season. As to how they died, this is where it gets interesting." He pulled out the notes he'd taken after rifling Doc's files.

"Only you could get info on a dead dude and say 'Ooooh, look at this, this is the really fascinating bit'," grumped Dean.

"I see now why the local paper referred to 'unusual' circumstances. Here, Number One died of 'asphyxiation occasioned by forcible immersion of the head in water'. Gross examination showed small fragments of wet paper in the mouth and nostrils, and, er, traces of, um, faecal matter on the skin of the face." He was the one found on school grounds. There were indications that he'd been dragged out of a bathroom afterwards."

Dean frowned. "Are you suggesting he was… swirlied to death?"

"Looks like it," confirmed Sam. "Now, Number Two…"

"I wish you hadn't said that," muttered Dean.

"Okay, poor choice of words, the second dead Councillor was found outside the grounds. Cause of death was 'acute traumatic rupture of several internal organs, including liver, spleen, stomach, pancreas, left kidney and both testes…" Dean crossed his legs involuntarily, "Apparently caused by blunt trauma inflicted by forceful upwards constriction of the deceased's, er, undergarment."

Dean stared at Sam's notes. "So, basically," he said slowly, "This was a case of… a fatal atomic wedgie."

"About twenty megatons of wedgie," Sam told him, "Although he lived long enough to make it out of the school grounds, presumably trying to escape, go for help. Aaaaaaaand the guy who died this morning, expired from 'asphyxia, caused by occlusion of the bronchi and trachea with foreign matter, to wit printed paper." Sam pulled out another page of notes. "It was pages torn out of a book," he said, "I copied down some of the text, in case that's relevant, but I think it might be from Livy's 'Ab Urbe Condita'. They did a real number, stuffing pages down his throat to get as far as his bronchi, I mean, that's where your airway divides, branches into your lungs. It'd take some serious stuffing to get it in that far."

"That's what she said," Dean smirked at Sam's last sentence, then looked thoughtful. "Would you think it was fair to say that these guys were… pranked to death?"

"Bullied to death might be more accurate," opined Sam. "Swirlies, wedgies, stuffing book pages into the mouth – the sort of things that bullies do to geeks. These guys were in their seventies, but still big guys. You'd have to put some serious strength into wedgieing someone so hard that their insides explode. And holding a guy that big in the toilet until he drowned would take some doing."

"So, three dead ex-footballer Neanderthals, bullied to death, and half a dead debating team of 99-pound nerds walkin' around," mused Dean. "Do we have a couple of old boys deciding to put in one last appearance for the Fardelhaus farewell activities?"

"Could be," agreed Sam, "And I think Doc Hanson might know something about it. He nearly jumped when I asked about Matthew McKenzie." He thought about his first encounter with Dr Bartlebead. "And somebody told Dr Bartlebead about me correcting the Latin on the diner menu. I think that Doc might have been to chat with the old guy, despite saying otherwise."

"He didn't really strike me as the type to dabble in the occult," Dean commented.

"He did seem familiar with Dr Bartlebead's eclectic book collection," Sam pointed out, "Maybe he found something there, decided to give it a try."

"What would prompt an educated man, a doctor, to try talking to ghosts, or making reanimator juju?" wondered Dean.

"Maybe he was lonely," speculated Sam. "If the Apostles were all local, they were probably friends. Fardelhaus was a place to make friends for life, Dr Bartlebead told me. Doc was the last one left. After all, from his point of view, what's the worst that could happen?"

"You succeed in raising the dead, and they start murdering the living who bullied them when they were kids," answered Dean in a resigned tone. "Okay, our next move it to check out the cemetery. If the nerds' graves have been disturbed, we'll go have a little chat with our friend Doc." He checked his watch. "If we get there right on dark, we can scope out the graves, get back here, clean up and change…"

"Change? Change?" asked Sam. "Why do you need to change?"

"Because, grinned Dean, "I am meeting up with Kara tonight."

Sam rolled his eyes and treated Dean to Bitchface #6™ (I Wish You'd Let Your Upstairs Brain Drive More Often). "Dean, we're working a case, here. You'll just have to tell Little Dean to wait."

"This is important, Sammy," said Dean earnestly, "I've made arrangements already. I can't let a lady down."

"What about your ass?" asked Sam, mildly curious. "I thought your ass was broken. I didn't think you had a pain kink, and if you do, I don't want to know."

Sam finally got his explanation for Dean's cheerfulness. "I'm definitely going to enjoy her company," his big brother told him. "She likes mixed drinks, old cars, action movies, and," his grin broadened into a wide smile, "She's studying to be a masseuse!"

* * *

><p>Reviews are Arse Massages in the Language Lessons of Life. Did I write that? Sorry. I'm a bit caffeine depleted. How about, Reviews are the Warm Puppy Cuddles on the Bruises of Life? Arse massage, or puppy cuddles? You can make your opinion known in the reviews. Anyone who wants a puppy to massage their arse will be put in therapy. Ignore that excited squeeing in the background, it's just elf. Be quiet, elf, we know whose arse you are volunteering to massage. I think PaulatheCat might argue with you over access. Take it outside, you two.<p> 


	10. Chapter 9

I haven't forgotten this one, it's just that the 'Prince Charming' plot bunny has been the more strident of the two. Fear not, I believe the end may be in sight.

If anyone is inclined to be impressed by my Latin, don't be - I've studied it for a grand total of six months, Bartlebead (ni shuo jung guo hua ma?) and the most complicated thing I can say is 'The boy is looking for his dog', then change that to the passive voice. It's mostly lifted from Henry Beard's books, 'Latin for All Occasions','Latin for Even More Occasions', and, of course, 'X-treme Latin'. They are hilarious, even if you don't have an interest in the language. Any mistakes in the conjugations or declensions are entirely _mea culpa_.

Right, so, onward: walking undead, accusations of insanity, adorable!Jimi and Dean's arse. Always a popular combination in a SPN fanfic.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 9<strong>

"He's finally lost it," sighed Dean sadly, eyeing his little brother. "I'm so sorry, Mom, Dad, I did my best to look out for my baby bro, but he's finally lost it. His brain finally exploded. There's nothing more I can do."

Jimi cocked his head, watching Sam, and his expression suggested that he agreed with Dean's diagnosis.

Sam sat on his haunches, pawing at the dirt on Matthew McKenzie's grave, and making encouraging noises at Jimi.

"Dig! Dig! C'mon, boy, Dig!" he chirped enthusiastically.

"It's just so sad," continued Dean, his voice trembling, "So sad. He was so smart, so intelligent, and to see him come to this, it just breaks my heart. He could've been a hot-shot lawyer once, and now... he thinks he's a dog." A heavy sigh escaped him. "With that hair, he even looks a bit like an Otterhound."

"You could try to help me with this, you know..." muttered Sam, continuing his attempts to get Jimi's attention. "You're the one who insisted that he should come along and participate in this job."

"Why?" Dean shook a fist at the sky. "Why? Why did this have to happen to him? Curse you, Fate! Curse you, oh cruel and uncaring universe! Why? Why? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?"

Sam kept his happy expression in place, for the benefit of the dog. "C'mon, Jimi, Dig! Dig!"

"It's okay, Sam," Dean told him gently, "We'll figure something out. We'll find a nice residential facility, a good one, where the personal care helpers are hot, and the restraints are comfortably padded..." Dean knelt beside his brother. "I'll come and visit you," he said, smiling bravely, "And feed you apple sauce..."

"Dean..."

"And even take you walkies, if it makes you happy, although the whole collar and lead thing is just a bit kinky but I'll do it for you, baby bro, I'll do it for you..."

"Dean..."

"And I'll bring you hookers, and explain to them that you'll probably want to do it doggy style, and afterwards when you roll over they should just scratch your belly..."

"Dean!" Sam barked at his brother.

"See, now, you're even starting to sound like a dog." Dean eyed Sam curiously. "Exactly why_ are_ you on your knees, in a graveyard, thinking you're a dog?" he asked.

"I'm trying to get him to understand that I want him to dig, here," explained Sam. "Use his superpowers for good, remember? If we can teach him to do his turbo-charged digging thing to help us dig up graves, how useful would that be? Come on, Jimi! Dig! Dig!" He called in a happy voice to the pup again.

Dean stood up again, and patted Jimi, who continued to watch Sam curiously. "All you're doing here is make both of us worry about your mental stability," he commented. "Come on, Sam, I have an appointment to keep, my ass with never forgive you if I don't make it."

"Fine, fine," conceded Sam, "We'll do it with shovels." He fished around briefly in his Bag Of Dirty Tricks. "It was worth a try. Although, I guess if Joni hasn't learned to dig up graves on command, Jimi probably can't, either. Bobby did say she was the smart one."

An affronted expression crossed Dean's face. Then he dropped to his knees again. "Dig, Jimi!" he told the pup in a cheerful tone. "Dig! Dig! Dig!"

Sam wondered idly what the police report would look like if anyone caught them; two grown men, on their knees, pretending to dig up a grave, while an overgrown puppy watched them with an expression of pure 'WTF?' on his cute little face...

Sam was about to call it a lost cause, when Jimi suddenly decided to join in, and see what they were doing. He pushed between them, and started to sniff, and dig.

"That's it!" enthused Dean, "Dig! Dig! Good boy! Good boy!"

Reacting to the praise from his Alpha, Jimi yipped excitedly, and began to excavate in earnest. The Winchesters stood back, and watched the dirt fly.

It was beyond the explanation of physics; no ordinary dog should've been able to move that much soil, that quickly. But like something out of a cartoon, on fast forward, Jimi rapidly disappeared into a deepening hole. When they heard the scrape of claws on wood, Dean jumped into the hole, and Jimi stopped, happy face dirty and panting.

A quick check of the coffin confirmed their suspicions. The earth over Matthew McKenzie's grave had looked far too recently disturbed for someone who had been buried two years ago, and as they suspected, the coffin was empty. Paul Ablett's final resting place indicated the same thing: it looked recently disturbed. The grave of the third 'Apostle', Luke Sorensen, remained reassuringly undisturbed.

"I'm betting that if we checked on Mr Ablett, his coffin is empty, too," surmised Sam, looking around. "So, let's assume we've got two missing dead guys."

"Zombies or revenants," confirmed Dean. "Could be anywhere. If they were smart guys when they were alive, they probably have the smarts now to stay out of sight, for now."

"If we can find out what raised them, we can figure out how to kill 'em," Sam suggested, as they filled in Jimi's handiwork – unfortunately, the pup showed no inclination to learn 'Bury'. "The pattern so far suggests that they'll lay low tonight, but I think tomorrow we should go have a little talk with Doc."

"Sounds like a plan," agreed Dean, straightening up. "But for now, me and my ass have a date."

"Sounds so romantic," said Sam, as they headed back to the car. "Just you and your ass. You were made for each other. You have so much in common."

"Sam..."

"You're both full of shit, for a start."

"Sam..."

"I can see it now, going parking with your ass: the moonlight shining, the back seat of the Impala, just you, your ass, and lots of heavy breathing."

"Sam..."

"And maybe some massage oil, and a couple of adult toys, because you're both informed consenting asses."

"Sam..."

"Just think what the fan art crowd could do with a prompt like that: 'Dean Dates His Own Awesome Ass' – that noise you heard was the sound of a thousand Deangirls all going 'squee!' at once."

"Sam, you are not too big to spank."

"Aren't you worried your own ass will get jealous?"

"Bitch."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

The next day, Sam was on the phone to Bobby, discussing possible reanimation counter-spell strategies when the Impala rumbled back into the lot. Through the window, he saw his big brother do the Strut Of Smug Self-Satisfaction (because Dean Winchester had _never_ done a Walk Of Shame in his entire life), then Dean flung the door wide, and smiled beatifically at his brother.

"So, you and your ass had a good time?" asked Sam, shutting his phone.

"Me and my ass had an _awesome_ time," corrected Dean, smirking, "Which is of course one of the perks of being a Living Sex God. That woman," he smiled happily, "That woman has the stamina of a marathon runner, and the fingers of an angel. Only the fingers of an angel could possibly take your ass to Heaven like that..."

"That's what he said, fangirls," muttered Sam, getting a thoroughly unwanted mental image of what the more rabid Destiel fans would do with _that_ sort of a prompt. "So, your ass is feeling better?"

"Are you kidding? Me and my ass could take on the world!"

"Oh, God, make it stop..." moaned Sam. Jimi put his head on Sam's knee, and whuffed in sympathy.

"So, what's the plan?" asked Dean in an irritatingly cheerful tone.

"We go talk to Doc, and take anything that might work in case we encounter his debating buddies," Sam told him. "I'll try to work up a counter-spell. Otherwise, decapitation or setting on fire will kill most things."

"I'm not sure setting them on fire is necessarily a good thing if they're not dead again first," said Dean. "I mean, what if they wander around, and set other things on fire? Not always a practical solution in an urban environment. Reanimated corpses, on fire, wandering in the streets, setting things alight. That sort of thing is bound to be noticed."

"You have a point," agreed Sam. "Ideally, we want to undo the spell that raised them."

"Decapitation is quicker," pointed out Dean.

"Undoing the incantation is less messy," countered Sam, "And you don't need to get dangerously close to them."

"Decapitation leaves them less time to interrupt," said Dean.

"Undoing the incantation is more efficient and less likely to attract attention," said Sam.

"Decapitation is more fun," insisted Dean. "You never let me have any fun."

The argument over the merits of various ways of dealing with the walking undead continued in the Impala, as far as the med clinic where Doc worked. The clinic was closed, but the elderly doctor was there, doing paperwork.

"Oh, dear," he sighed when confronted with Sam's theory, "I suppose it was bound to come out sooner or later." He fished in a bottom drawer of his desk. "I'm one of the Friends of Fardelhaus," he told them, "I was on the working group for sorting the books and memorabilia for sale. I remembered this," he hefted the book, "From Doctor Bartlebead's library. It was funny, at the time, it seemed so far-fetched, but I remembered it recently, and when I found it in the stores..."

It was a little sad, Sam thought. Doc had been lonely, after his wife and then the last of his close friends from his school days had died. He admitted going to the old school grounds and talking with Doctor Bartlebead, taking the old ghost cups of cocoa, just for the company. Then, he'd found the book he remembered, and managed to perform the reanimation incantation, bringing Matthew and Paul back.

"We would do the things we used to do while they were alive," he said, "We played cards, discussed books or current affairs, harassed each other about who was losing their Latin. During daylight, they snoozed in my basement."

"Wow, sounds like a laugh a minute," mumbled Dean. "So, is it your reanimated pals who've been offing members of the Council?"

Doc looked stricken. "They wanted to go out, see Fardelhaus one more time before it was pulled down. I told them it was a bad idea, but, well, I couldn't stop them. They are astonishingly strong. Helped me move some boxes in the garage..."

"Hire-A-Zombie," mused Dean, "There could be money in it, I guess... where are they now?"

"I don't know," said Doc unhappily. "They weren't too happy about me berating them for killing the Councillors, and they got bored waiting for Luke. We couldn't play bridge without a fourth, you see."

"Luke? The fourth Apostle on the team? His grave hasn't been disturbed. Why didn't you, er, re-summon him?" asked Sam.

"Oh, I did," Doc corrected him, "But he didn't show up. He was always late," Doc smiled at the memory. "With his patients, he was excruciatingly punctual. Lived for his career. Ask him to show up on time for something social, he was just as likely to forget entirely. He probably wouldn't show up unless I'd promised him one last patient to help."

"Damn," muttered Sam, reading through the arcane book Doc had used, "This complicates things."

"How?" prompted Dean.

"Well, think of it as occult hang-fire," responded Sam, frowning at the book. "Unexploded ordnance. Something might've gone wrong, or he might just not have risen yet." He humphed. "Undoing the spell is probably the best way to tackle this," he decided, "That way we don't have to find them, and we can, uh, defuse Luke. Where did you draw the pentagram?"

Doc showed them to his basement, where the original markings had been scuffed away. Sam swore, then took a photo with his phone, sent it to Bobby, and called the old Hunter.

It took most of the day to figure out how to undo the incantation, with Sam consulting Bobby and sending Dean and Doc to procure items he'd need. By sunset, he had a counter-spell ready.

"Okay," he announced, "This is a cobbled together job, but we're out of time - right now, untidy-but-effective is more important than elegant and subtle. So," he consulted his notes, "I gotta do the counter-spell here, where the summoning was done." He looked to Dean. "You gotta be at the cemetery, with their graves open for them. I do the counter-spell, they're drawn back to their graves, you get 'em covered with dirt – as soon as they're reburied, all back underground, the spell is broken."

"Sounds too simple," commented Dean pessimistically, "What's the catch?"

"Well, first you mark the graves to be despelled with a splash of this stuff," Sam pushed a bottle of a strange green concoction towards his brother, "Do Luke's as well, just to be sure. Then dig 'em open. When they show up, they might seem a bit reluctant to get back in, BUT," he forestalled Dean, "This is an incantation done in friendship, not malevolent intent, so I'm undoing it the same way - all you have to do is say something, er, conversational, and they'll just carry on, and jump right back in. Then you fill 'em in, end of problem."

"Conversational?" Dean blinked at his brother. "Conversational? How do I make conversation with old, dead dudes? We'll have nothing in common! Can't I just decapitate 'em if they won't lie down and play properly dead?"

"No. That'll wreck the counter-spell. Done in friendship, remember? Surely you can manage one or two lines of meaningless idle chit-chat?"

"About what?" insisted Dean.

"Well, Paul was a lawyer then a judge, and Matthew was a bit of a sports fan," suggested Doc.

"Fine, fine," grumbled Dean, "Shoot the breeze with the old dead dudes. And the kid who could see dead people thought he had a problem." He glanced out the window. "Sun's nearly down," he observed, "I'd better get going. C'mon Jimi," he called the dog, picking up the bottle of green goo and grinning at Sam. "With His Awesomeness's superpowers, we'll have those graves open before you can say Goodnight Old Dead Dudes." A minute later, they heard the Impala rumble away.

Back at the cemetery, Dean splashed the three relevant graves with Sam's zombie defusing concoction, and encouraged Jimi to dig again. The pup really seemed to have gotten the idea; Dean hardly had to pantomime at all before he was excavating like a four-legged front-end loader on steroids.

"Good work, J-Man!" Dean praised him. "And not a zombie in sight yet. Once they're here, why don't we work on 'Bury'?" Jimi grinned happily up at him, basking in his Alpha's approval.

Dean leaned on his shovel, waiting for his clients to show up, when his phone rang. It was Sam.

"We're all set at this end, bro," he reported, "Just waiting for the guests to arrive."

"Er, yeah, that's good," Sam told him, "Um, look, there's just been a slight... modification of the plan."

"What?" Dean was instantly suspicious.

"Well, I did this in a hurry, and I've found a... glitch in the counterspell."

"What sort of a glitch, Sammy?" asked Dean anxiously. "Tell me I don't have to do anything more difficult than chat with these guys."

"No, no, that's all you have to do," Sam assured him, "Except..."

"Except what?" demanded Dean grumpily.

"Well, you know these guys were all well-educated professionals..."

"What's the glitch, Sam?" sighed Dean.

"Er, well, you still have to make pleasant chit-chat with them. The thing is, you have to do it in Latin."

* * *

><p>It was a wonderful Jimiverse reviewer called Janie340 who once pointed out that if Sam had summoned a Hellhound and it remodelled itself on him, it would probably be an Otterhound. Is there some resemblance? You decide:<br>httpCOLON/wwwDOTdogbreedinfoDOTcom/otterhoundDOThtm

Reviews are the Apple Sauce in the Locked Ward Of Life.


	11. Chapter 10

After neglecting this story for a bit (on account of the Chocolate Powered Update Inspiration Fairy deserting me and the 'Prince Charming' plot bunny insisting - at gunpoint - that I finish that one first), I am back to finish of 'Can You Dig It?' We're just about there: Sam will undo the incantation, and once again we will get to see Dean's awesome Latin skills. And possibly, by popular demand, his awesome arse... you know, some of you really are unhealthily obsessed with it...

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 10<strong>

"So, I'm thinking crew cut," Dean told Jimi, as he leaned on the shovel, "Or maybe just a buzz cut would be quicker. Either way, my bitchfacing baby brother has to pay for this." He patted the dog. "I figure we take some of those harmless painkillers he fed me, crush them up, and stir them into his camomile tea, then you sit on him just to make sure, while I plug in the clippers. What do you think?" Jimi grinned up at him, wagging his tail. "Yeah, you're right, let's go the buzz cut. Number three? Nah, let's go for number two. I'll decide a bit later whether his eyebrows have to die, too…"

His phone pulled him from fantasising about taking revenge upon his brother for sending him out to make pleasant casual conversation in a dead language with dead dudes in the dead of night.

"Um, hello, Dean?" It was Doc. "Sam began the incantation about twenty minutes ago, so wherever they were, they should be showing up soon."

"Locked and loaded at this end," Dean assured him, "Can you put Sam on for a minute? I'd like to offer some keen insights into his counter-spell devising ability…"

"Um… he said he can't stop, he has to keep reciting until they're back underground and the spell is broken," replied Doc a bit apologetically. "He says hold that thought and he'll get back to you after this."

"Great," muttered Dean, deciding maybe not to put a comb on the clippers at all. "Looks like it's just you and me, bud." Jimi whuffed, and butted his head affectionately against Dean's leg.

A few minutes later, a figure made its way deliberately through the cemetery. It was dressed in a slightly mouldy looking suit, with clumps of what must once have been a truly impressive shock of grey hair still sticking up from the scalp. It approached him, a suspicious expression on a surprisingly well-preserved face.

Dean pulled out his phone. "Doc, looks like we've got our first arrival," he said, "It was Matthew with the Einstein hair, right?"

"Er, yes, that's correct," confirmed Doc. "Matthew was the sports fan."

Dean stared as the reanimated Fardlehaus old boy approached. "Er, you know, he looks pretty well preserved," he commented, "Did he drink a lot?"

"It's the adipocere," Doc told him, "The ground here is cold and damp, favours saponification rather than putrefaction."

"Okaaaay, you might want to tell Sam that, it's the sort of thing he'd be interested in," Dean suggested. "Hang on, just gotta deal with a client." The corpse of Matthew McKenzie approached his grave, and frowned at Dean.

"Salve," grinned Dean. _Hi there_. "Sona si Latine loqueris!" _Honk if you speak Latin!_ The late Mr McKenzie's frown deepened, so Dean quickly added, "Gramen artificiosum odi". _I hate Astroturf._

The old dead dude's face broke into a smile, with the slightly disconcerting effect of cracking his face. However, he calmly climbed back down into his grave, and lay in his coffin.

"Is everything all right, Dean?" quavered Doc's voice on speaker phone from his pocket.

"We got our first satisified customer," confirmed Dean, "Just gotta put him back to bed. Bury, Jimi!" he encouraged the dog to join in as he shovelled. "Bury! Bury! C'mon, it's the opposite of Dig! NO! NO! Stop it!" He dropped the shovel and grappled with Jimi, who had heard the command for his latest trick, and eagerly started undoing Dean's grave-filling. "No, Bury. Bury! Like this." Dean dropped to all fours, and began tunnelling the soil backwards between his feet. "Bury! Bury!" Jimi just continued to look at him with an expression of complete 'WTF?' on his face, head cocked endearingly.

"Okay, well, we'll work on the Bury thing," Dean conceded. "Just don't do the… D-word again."

He had just finished re-interring Matthew when a second shape approached.

"Tell Sam to keep it up, it's working," he said to his phone. "Shortish, chubby, balding, looks like he was buried in a cloak of some sort…"

"That's Paul. He was buried in his judicial robes. Not his wig though. He had one, but hated it. Never wore it once in his working life, not even for formal occasions. Said if he was going bald, he'd damned well do it proudly, ridiculous long-standing Imperial traditions be damned," related Doc. The portly ex-judge made his way ponderously to his open grave, and frowned at Dean.

Dean smiled as politely as he could manage. "Quid fit?" he asked. _What's happening?_ The old law man frowned at him; when he was alive, it must've been an expression to strike fear into counsel for the prosecution as much as counsel for the defence. "Minime! Non est! Ego fui! Semper ego! Ego facinus feci! Atque gaudeo me fecisse!" _No, no! It was me! It was me all along! I did it! I did it and I'm glad!_ Judge Atwell did not look amused. "Hahahae, tantummodo iocabar." _Hahaha, just kidding._ Dean smiled brightly. Judge Atwell's lip curled in disapproval, making part of it detach and fall off, as his mouldering hands reached for Dean's neck. "Oh. Ew. Gross. Er, Mea sententia, causam privatam obtinenti ut minimum decies centena milia Ioachimicorum addici debent, at de perdente supplicium ultimum in electrica sella sumendum est" _I believe the minimum award in civil cases should be one million dollars, but if you lose, you get the electric chair__._

That, apparently, was a sentiment the old man could appreciate. He smiled and nodded approvingly to Dean, then climbed into his coffin and lay down obligingly.

"Right, just about done," he sighed, beginning to shovel. "Just gotta fill this one in, and we're done. You wanna have another go at 'Bury', Jimi? C'mon, Bury! Jimi?" Dean looked around; the pup had been right behind him a moment ago. Still, it wasn't surprising: in a cemetery, full of the smell of dead things, Jimi was probably wandering around, blissfully oblivious, with his nose to the ground, unable to decide where to roll first…

_Jimi sniffed at the ground until he found it... there! The scent his Alpha had laid. It bore a minor whiff of Second, too. This was his doing. _

_He had learned a new Command, and it was one he was eager to obey. Dig! It was fun, and it gained him praise from his Pack. He'd already done Dig twice tonight, and basked in the happy approval of his Alpha. Now, he'd found another place marked like the others. The working dog in him knew what to do; the Hellhound in him had the wherewithal to do it._

_So Jimi Dug..._

Dean was just tidying up Judge Atwell's grave, when he heard a raspy yet distinctly pleasant voice behind him say, "So, then, what seems to be the trouble?"

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"What's wrong, Sam?" asked Doc anxiously.

"I'm not sure," frowned Sam, gesturing at the carefully laid lines of powdered herbs, "But something's not right. The line's should've disrupted - the spell hasn't broken. Call Dean, ask him if there's a problem at his end…"

Sam's phone rang.

"Er, I think we have a slight problem with the plan," his big brother said warily.

"Dean! What's happened? It hasn't broken yet!" asked Sam.

"While I was finishing up with Judge Atwell, Jimi went and dug up Luke," Dean answered. "He must've been attracted to the zombie repellent you brewed up - I got him to dig – No! NO! Jimi! STOP THAT! I got him to, er, d-word at the two graves after I'd splashed them."

"Oh, damn," huffed Sam, "He must think that the smell means that's where he's supposed to, um, d-word." He glanced back at the undisturbed lines. "So, what's Luke, er, doing?"

"Um, he's just standing there, smiling at me, looking friendly," Dean informed them. "Not very zombie-like at all, really. He, uh, just asked me what the trouble was."

"Okay," said Sam, "Okay, we keep doing what we're doing, I'll start the recitation again, you get this guy back to his grave, fill him in, and we're done."

"Right, right," agreed Dean nervously. "Um, why has he decided to rise now?"

Over the phone, Sam and Doc heard a distinct second voice:

"Now now, don't be shy, I am a doctor. I'm just here to help you."

"Oh, dear," muttered Doc, "Oh dear. That's Luke, all right, in his Caring Professional Voice. Always did have an astonishingly good bedside manner for a surgeon. I'd recognise it anywhere." He turned sheepish eyes to Sam, and spoke to the phone. "Er, Dean, it might be you that's raised him." At Sam's confused expression, he continued, "I did tell you that probably the only thing that would get him back from the dead would be a patient needing his help. Well, er, do you have any, um, health problems at the moment?"

"You mean his ankle?" asked Sam, still confused. "It's much better now. Hardly the sort of thing needing the attention of an orthopaedic surgeon… " he suddenly stopped. A truly dreadful suspicion was forming in his mind…

"Oh, Luke wasn't an orthopod," Doc corrected him with a slightly nervous grin. "He was a, er, proctologist. A colo-rectal surgeon."

Sam grabbed up his notes, and began reciting again, ignoring the horrified scream from the phone.

"_Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!"_

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!" yelped Dean, backing away as the friendly zombie followed him.

"Ah, one of Doc Hanson's patients, then," he smiled. "Dean, was it? So, can you give me a description of your symptoms?"

"Huh?" gaped Dean in horror.

"Look, I can see you're clearly in some discomfort in the nether regions, son," explained Mr Sorensen, "You might think you're hiding it, but I can tell just from the way you're walking. I have been doing this for a number of years, now, you know," he added with a wink. "So, when did you first notice that something was wrong?"

"Nonononononono, I'm fine, really…" replied Dean nervously, backing away faster. The newly risen, caring and compassionate specialist followed him.

"It's perfectly normal to be a bit concerned," said the zombie in a reassuring voice, "And a bit embarrassed. But I assure you, it's nothing to be worried about. Why don't we just take a look…"

A clammy hand shot out and grabbed hold of Dean's arm.

"No, really, there's nothing wrong with me," Dean told him desperately, trying to wriggle out of the zombie's grasp.

"Well, let's just make sure, shall we?" Mr Sorensen was all professionalism. "If it is something, chances are, we catch it early, the prognosis for full recovery is excellent in a patient of your age."

"Jimi! Jimi!" squawked Dean. Unfortunately, Jimi had found something absolutely irresistible in a manicured garden bed nearby, and was happily digging for all he was worth, soil and shrubbery flying.

"Come come, Dean, you're a big boy," coaxed the zombie, "Just try to relax, this will be over before you know it." With his immoveable grasp on Dean's arm, he bent the Hunter over a convenient tombstone.

"I'm fine there's nothing wrong with meeeeeeeee!" yowled Dean.

"Oh, don't be such a baby," smiled Mr Sorensen, "There's just you and me here, and there's nothing to be ashamed of. I won't see much. Certainly not anything I haven't seen many times before."

"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalp!" squalled Dean.

"Dear me, we men are such babies about doctor visits, aren't we?" sympathised the zombie in a friendly voice. "You know, I suspect I'm an even bigger baby when I go to visit my urologist. Mind you," he confided, "It was never an area I'd want to work in. Spending your career looking at other men's junk, just plain unsavoury, if you ask me."

"And looking up their asses isn't?" screeched Dean, squirming ineffectively in the zombie's grip.

"Now, then, do try to relax, Dean, this will be over in a moment…"

A disintegrating hand took hold of the waistbands of his jeans and boxers; the worn fabric and prolapsed elastic was no match for zombie strength.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" wailed Dean.

"Oh. Oh my. Goodness me, I think I see what the problem is," commented Dr Sorensen, inspecting the pale flesh in the moonlight. "You have extensive bilateral contusions of your glutei maximi, here, young man."

"YEEEEEP COLDHAAAANDS!" shrieked Dean.

"Now, it's none of my business how it happened," the zombie specialist assured him, "Informed consenting adults, and all that. I am only interested in diagnosing and treating your problem. But that's all it is. Your posterior is otherwise in fine form. I think that an over-the-counter medication would help with this. It's called Hirudoid. Works wonders with bruising. An analgesic would probably be helpful, too. If you need something stronger than Tylenol, go back to Doc Hanson, and tell him I sent you." The vice-like grasp released, and Dean straightened up with a shuddering breath.

"Er, yeah, right, right," he gasped, his head spinning. "Um… thank you?"

"My pleasure, Dean." The zombie took a step back, and just stood there, watching him with a friendly and compassionate expression.

"Dean? Dean!" Sam's voice called anxiously from his cell; dimly, he realised that it was still in his pocket on speaker phone. "Dean? Are you okay? What's happening?"

"Oh, I'm fine, Sam," he answered, an edge of giggling hysteria creeping into his voice, "Dr Dead Dude here has examined my ass, and pronounced it bruised, but otherwise healthy. And I don't think he's even gonna charge me."

"Dean!" snapped Sam. "You have finish the counter-spell at your end!"

"What? Oh, yeah," replied Dean faintly. Mr Sorensen still stood, looking expectantly at Dean. "Um…"

The problem was, he couldn't think of anything resembling polite idle chit-chat that might be appropriate to having an old, dead dude rip his pants off and start feeling him up...

"Er... Potesne mihi medicus testimonium impertire adfirmans caput meum reapse non infixum esse podici? Pro frater meus." _Could you provide me with __a doctor's certificate__ stating that my head is not, in fact, up __my ass__?__ For my brother. _

That seemed to do the trick. Luke Sorensen smiled, nodded genially, and turned to head back to his grave.

Instead, he walked straight into the hole that Jimi had dug in the flower bed.

"Oh, fuck me," moaned Dean to Jimi, who sat with his tail wagging, grinning down at the zombie reclining comfortably at the bottom of a hole at least ten feet deep. He shivered slightly at the chilliness of the night breeze caressing his nether regions, "Now I gotta haul him outta this damned pit you've dug – with my ass hanging out of my pants – before I can even _bury_ him again..."

Jimi cocked his head attentively. Something went 'click' in his brain, and...

He began to Bury.

Clutching the remains of his pants to himself, Dean considered his options. He could stop Jimi from filling in the gaping crater he'd dug, figure out a way to get down into it and haul the late Mr Sorensen out and back to his own grave, or...

Looking down into the hole, he saw the ex-surgeon lying composed, smiling, and extremely, properly, reassuringly dead.

"Good boy, Jimi!" he praised the pup, as the soil continued to fly back into the hole. "Bury! Bury! Good boy!"

When Jimi had finished, Dean did what he could to restore a semblance of order to the flower bed that was now the final resting place of Mr Luke Sorensen. Consecrated ground was, after all, consecrated ground. Together, they filled in his original grave, then headed back to the Impala.

Dean ratted around in the trunk, finding an old pair of sweat pants. As he pulled them on, he turned to Jimi, and made a final decision.

"We are not screwing around with a buzz cut," he growled. "It will be a wet shave."

* * *

><p>I think we need one more chapter to finish this off properly. After all, they still have to worship unto the Gods Of Whiskey...<p>

Reviews are the Zombies Tearing Off Dean Winchester's Clothes in the Graveyard Of Life.


	12. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Janis and Joni curled together in front of the fire.

"I really set off his tripwires, didn't I?" sighed Ronnie ruefully into her coffee. "I tried so hard, I really did…"

"He'd decided to resent you long before he met you," grinned Bobby. "You get points for being polite Above And Beyond The Call Of Duty, though. Mind you," he frowned at her, "When he got your ancestry wrong, I thought we were going to have a, er, little visit from the fang fairy, there…"

"It's Sam I feel sorry for," Ronnie continued. "He just wants what's best for Jimi. He wants to learn. I can help with that."

"So, help Sam," reasoned Bobby, "Just don't let Dean know about it. Of course," he cautioned, "He's the smart one. Notices things. Figures things out. So be careful."

"You held out on me, you old bastard," Ronnie accused him. "You didn't let me ask Jimi."

"Wouldn't have been any point, Ronnie," he told her, "He made his choice the moment he laid eyes on his Hunter." He nodded towards the two pups snuggled together. "Just like the ladies did."

"I asked him, you know, to join my pack, with his sister. They'd be unstoppable as a team... he was very polite about saying no." Ronnie smiled. "I can _see_ him, Bobby, I can see what he's going to be. Gods, I wish I could've met his sire." Her face was suddenly hard. "How the hell did Mr Orgasmatron summon a Hellhound, Bobby? I've been trying to figure that out for years! Almost got one to stay with me, once, but…"

"It was a fluke, a mistake and should never have happened," growled Bobby, "And if I ever find out you've been messin' around trying to adopt your own stray from the Hellside SPCA shelter, madam, I will fill you so full of silver rounds you'll look like a tea-strainer fit for the Queen of England herself."

Ronnie grinned at that. Her eyes went back to the pups. "What about you, Janis?" she asked Bobby's pup, "Getting the itch to travel, or are you happy here with your mum and your old fart?" She directed a short whuffling enquiry.

Janis lifted her head, and the last three inches of her tail wagged a couple of times as she woofed her predictable answer with a fond glance at Bobby. He didn't need to speak Canine to understand her answer. _My Den, my Alpha._

"You'll make sure they figure it out, won't you, Bobby?" she asked. "I think Jimi will teach himself, largely, but…"

"You got Sam's number?" asked Bobby.

"Yeah. I can work with the smart one." She grinned. "He wants to teach Jimi the beer trick. He's not matured enough to put it together yet, but I've given Sam some more basic stuff to start with." She fidgeted with her coffee mug.

"Should you be drinkin' that stuff tonight?" he asked her. "Aint you fidgety enough already?"

"It has been a while," she conceded, "It's not easy to find places where it's… safe to, er, let my hair down. Bobby," she said suddenly, "If a Hunt goes pear-shaped and it's only me…"

"I'll take care of your dog," he assured her, "Haven't I promised you that before?"

"Ask the Winchesters if they'd like to take Joni," she finished unexpectedly. Bobby stared at her.

"You'd let her go with Dean and Sam?" he asked incredulously.

"I asked her," she replied. "Apparently, she thinks she could work with the smart one, too. And you know how fussy she is."

"Aint that the truth," Bobby agreed. He looked at his watch. "Moon was up hours ago," he commented, "Why don't you pair of idjits go get it out of your system, and stop wrigglin' like you've got worms or something?"

"We might just do that, Bobby," announced Ronnie, "If I can drag Her Ladyship away from the fire." She barked a short enquiry to Joni, who was immediately on her feet, tail wagging furiously in anticipation.

"Remember where you leave your stuff," instructed Bobby, "Last thing I need is any locals trading tattle about nekkid wimmen runnin' around the yard."

"They'll wink and nudge each other and marvel at your pulling power, old man," she laughed, heading for the door. "Janis? Wanna make this a girls' night out?" She barked another enquiry.

Janis shot Bobby a pleading look, and he waved a hand at her. She followed Ronnie and Joni outside. Rumsfeld declined to join them. Even to Bobby, her expression was eloquent: _Somebody has to mind the place while you kids go running off who knows where._

"You aint back by sunrise, I'll come looking. With a weapon," Bobby cautioned her.

"Yes, Dad," Ronnie whined melodramatically with much theatrical rolling of eyes and heaving of sighs. Flanked by the two dogs, she made her way out into the yard.

A few minutes later, Bobby heard excited play-barking, and a short howl. He smiled to himself, and looked out the window.

If he saw three shapes heading for the trees, two black outlines accompanying a larger, lupine form loping on all fours, it could've been shadows cast by the full moon and his imagination.

He went back to his reading. He really hoped he'd never have to make good on his promise; Ronnie was a good Hunter, but, well, she was Hunted, too...

Still, he had to smile at the idea of Joni joining the Winchester pack – she would be brains to Jimi's brawn. An unstoppable team. And if Dean was jealous of Joni's quick progress now, what would it be like if she attached herself to his little brother?

Oh, and the look on his face if Sam was adopted by a dog that could bring him beer?

That would be _priceless_.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Sam suddenly paused, and realised that he was positively cackling over his haul from the Fardlehaus Hall sale. He took a moment to compose himself. He couldn't help it, really; there had been some amazing finds, and he'd spent a very enjoyable day browsing through the tables. He'd snagged the Baring-Gould, the Pliny, and quite a few other volumes, including a handwritten journal describing the history of Fardlehaus Hall. In thanks for the Winchesters' help with putting his old school friends back to rest, Doc had done him a very good price on them. He retreated to a small coffee shop just across the road from the old school, to browse through his haul.

That journal intrigued him. It was more than a hundred and fifty years old, with sketches and notes about the history of things from the desk in the Headmaster's office to the gargoyles on the roof. They were imported from Germany, by the founder of the school, Herr Doctor Fardlehaus, and were already at least a couple of centuries old then. The stone that had once stood between them had been lost early on, shortly after the author of the journal documented the strange inscription in Greek, when it was dislodged and crumbled during a gale.

He pored over the inscription – yes, it was written in Greek, but it didn't, well,_ look_ like Greek... a bit of transcription soon established that it was in fact Latin, rendered with the Greek alphabet. Curious, he thought, reading it out to himself. He'd show it to Bobby, see what the old Hunter made of it.

He sipped his coffee, and looked up at the gargoyles. It didn't seem fair, really – they'd been there for so long, and now they'd be demolished along with the rest of the building. They were almost identical; the sculptor had known his stuff, and had an eye for detail. He had a sudden mental picture of them perching on the gates of Singer Salvage.

"The things you must've seen...You guys would be right at home on Bobby's gates, guarding the yard," he smiled up at them, "And I'll bet Bobby would enjoy the company."

Sam checked his watch; it was early afternoon. It was probably safe to return to the motel. Dean had, eventually, stopped threatening to sit on him and shave his head, modifying his revenge plan to threatening to cut the seat out of every single pair of pants that Sam owned. He hadn't taken the whole being grabbed, pantsed and examined by a dead proctologist very well. Still, Sam didn't really blame him. Hopefully, when he returned from his latest visit to Kara the budding masseuse, he'd be in a better mood.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"No glass in the spa bath – house rule," Kara explained when Dean gave her a quizzical look as she handed him his beer in a plastic cup. "It's my nephew's," she apologised.

"Hey, that's okay, Batman is cool," he grinned at her with the Killer Smile, and took a drink of beer as he slid further down into the hot, bubbling water.

"It's so sweet of you to let me practise on you," she told him, slipping into the water behind him. "How's are the, er..."

"Glutei maximi?" he finished. She smiled. "They are, as ever, awesome. I even have an official medical opinion to confirm it."

She laughed, and put her hands on his shoulders, kneading. "Wow, you're very tense," she commented, "Have you been working hard?"

"Digging," he told her, sighing and sinking further. "And, of course, my little brother is a pain in the neck."

"We're doing the trapezius and its insertion points this week," she told him. "Your trapezii are nice. Very anatomically well defined. Mmmmmm, you'd make a marvellous teaching model," she purred.

He turned around, smiling wickedly again. "So, wanna check out my insertion point?" he asked innocently.

Splashing and frolics ensued.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

His visit to Kara did improve Dean's mood considerably, thought Sam.

"Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face..."

Or, it could have been their visit to the Jim Bean distillery in Clermont, and the following visit to the bar that served fifty different types of bourbon.

"Stars to fill my dream..."

Sam wasn't certain exactly how many Dean had sampled in the process of offering adequate obeisance unto the Gods Of Whiskey, but it was enough to have him dancing around their motel room with his shorts on his head.

"Sing with me, Sammy!" he insisted, "For I, the Living Sex God, am not too haughty to sing praises unto the Gods Of Whiskey with my little brother."

"Look, Dean, it's late, I don't know if we should be singing at this hour..." Sam started.

"Silence, heretic! Raise your voice unto the Gods, lest you incur their wrath!" intoned Dean, in a voice laden with portent. "I am a traveller of both time and space..."

Figuring he wasn't going to get any sleep until Dean passed out anyway, Sam refilled his own glass, and joined his brother in song.

Admittedly, not the same song, but Dean didn't seem to mind...

In fact, the only person who did hear them wasn't so much disturbed as perplexed.

A middle-aged businessman, travelling for work, was in the unique position of being able to recognise both songs. He was of an age to recognise the Zeppelin, and his father had been in the Navy, so he was familiar with the hymn.

Oh, pilot of the storm who leaves no trace/Eternal Father, strong to save  
>Like thoughts inside a dreamWhose arm hath bound the restless wave  
>Heed the path that led me to that placeWho bids the mighty ocean deep  
>Yellow desert streamIt's own appointed limits keep  
>My Shangri-La beneath the summer moonOh hear us when we cry to thee  
>I will return againFor those in peril on the sea...

Why the two slightly off-key male voices chose to sing 'Kashmir' and 'For Those In Peril On The Sea' simultaneously was anybody's guess. From the sound of it, there was alcohol involved.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"I don't believe it." A voice, grown harsh with disuse, rasped into the light breeze high above the town. "I do not believe it."

Another voice, with an edge of excitement. "Finally, FINALLY, somebody works out that damned inscription! I thought we were royally screwed when that stone fell in that storm. We'll be stuck here forever, I thought..."

"Well, not any more. He worked it out, and spoke it." A strange grating sound, like a slide of shale fragments, accompanied a stretching of limbs. And wings. "Not only have we been released, we have another job lined up. We've been invited. That makes it official."

"Imagine – a human who wants to talk to us!" The second voice could hardly contain its enthusiasm. "A bright lad, that one. I wonder if there will be much guarding to do? Do people even know about demons and the evil things that walk the world any more? So, where are we going, exactly?"

A snubbed snout lifted into the air. "One thing at a time. First, we find and follow the scent. He's not far from here..."

"Look! Look!" A taloned hand grasped eagerly at a hard arm, and another talon pointed excitedly. From their vantage point so high above the town, a large black vehicle could be seen rumbling its way along one of the roads leading... away. "There he goes! That's him!"

"So it is!" A grin, and an affectionate touch. "Well spotted, little brother. Come on, then." A heavy, dull thudding presaged the stretching of two pairs of wings, long unused, but eager now to travel. "Are you ready?"

"Follow that car!" Cried the younger of the two. The older brother smiled. It was wonderful to see his little brother so happy, so excited.

With enthusiastic purpose, and hearts full of hope, the two gargoyles pushed off from the roof of Fardlehaus Hall, and flapped off towards their new life.

**THE END.**

* * *

><p>Finally, after being derailed by a bigger, meaner and better-armed plot bunny, we have finished this one. Ta-dah! (Complete with gargoyles off to start a new life at Singer Salvage, for PaulatheCat.) Thank you to all the regular Denizens of the Jimiverse, and any casual visitors who decided to pop in. Thank you especially for the kind reviews you left, even if I am desperately worried about some of you and your obsession with seeing Dean in a state of undress. I'll be back next time a plot bunny pesters me. Meanwhile, if you MUST shoo the wretched things in my direction, as I've asked before, please get them to form an orderly queue.<p> 


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